Where The Heart Lies
by The Crimson X
Summary: A collection of short stories that focus on the romance and passionate nights between the Seeker and the Inquisitor; Cassandra Pentaghast and Kaaras Adaar.
1. By The Book

Skyhold was being particularly chilly today, or so it seemed to Kaaras as he wandered over to his fireplace to throw another log inside. Any minute now and he would have to start using his fire magic to keep warm, at least that was reliable compared to this room with its far-too-open windows sitting on top of a _mountain._ Whatever the original architect was thinking when he or she built this place Kaaras could not possibly guess.

A knock at his door made him turn a little. "Come in," he called, holding his hands out to the fire to warm them.

He heard the door open and boots clopping up the stairs. "Hello, Inquisitor," the distinct drawl of Cassandra's voice reached his ears, "I needed to—are you alright?"

Kaaras looked back at her with a smile, catching her at just the right moment to see the concern written plain on her face before she coughed and tried to compose herself. "I am fine, Cassandra," he said, turning around so his back could feel the warmth next. "Just cold, is all."

She glared at the doors and windows around his room as if they personally offended her. "I will tell Leliana to deal with this problem," she said decisively. "You shouldn't feel cold in here, no one should. What if you get sick?"

Her concern was cute, extremely cute actually, and Kaaras merely shrugged. "I think it's just a part of being Qunari. We weren't exactly made for the cold." With his hands behind his back, he flared a small fireball between them, relishing in the heat it generated. "But, what did you want to talk about? I'm all ears."

The scowl fell away from her face, replaced by something that, if it wasn't Cassandra, Kaaras might have called unease. "Yes that," she said, avoiding his eye. "In fact it has something to do with you being a qunari."

How strange. Kaaras never had to pry questions out of Cassandra and here they both were now. "Is there anything specific or...?" He shrugged again.

"Yes. How do you deal with not being in the Qun?"

 _That_ was not something he ever expected to hear. Kaaras blinked at her, his fireball fizzling out of existence in his confusion. "Um...I feel quite fine actually," he said, unsure of how to respond except with the truth. He tried to think of why Cassandra might ask such a question out of the blue like that and added: "Being a qunari has never bothered me at all. I don't feel out of place here."

"It is not that," Cassandra admitted, coming forward and placing something on his desk. It was the thick book that they had recovered from the Seekers, he recognized the eye on the cover. "In the Qun everyone has a place, a purpose that becomes their whole identity. I..." she trailed off, her fingers tracing idle patterns along the eye. "I did the same when I decided to become a Seeker. I devoted my life to the order. I never let myself even think about being anything else because I never _wanted_ to be anything else." She jabbed her finger into the book as if she could take all her frustrations out on it. "And now they are gone. And before that they became obsolete with the war between the Templars and the mages. For the first time in my life I am bound by nothing; I am part of the Inquisition but I still always considered myself a Seeker." Her brows furrowed as she went silent, her mind obviously trying to find the right words to continue.

Unease pricked at Kaaras as he listened to her and he decided to lighten the mood before she could get too far down the track of her thoughts. "So you decided to come to me because I don't have a purpose in life?" he joked.

"What? No!" Cassandra's utter mortification was even better than he thought it would be and he had to fight to keep down his laughter. "You're the _Inquisitor!_ But before that you were Tal-Vashoth, free and unbound by any purpose in the world. You know what it's like to live a life like that."

Oh, that. Kaaras scratched one of his horns thoughtfully. "Yes, I do, but it wasn't so great all the time. I am still a mage. I wasn't chained and had my lips sewn up like how they handle mages in the Qun but I still had problems with hiding from Templars. Sometimes even other mercenaries and Tal-Vashoth were afraid of me. So in a way I guess you could say I'm bound by that."

Cassandra was quiet for a moment, her face softening out of its scowl from his words. "I'm sorry," she said in a soft voice. "I had no idea."

"Don't get me wrong, it was great. I wouldn't have had it any other way. But being a mage still brought problems of its own."

"How foolish." The venom in Cassandra's voice took him aback. "Yes, mages can be dangerous but that is no excuse to treat them like wild animals that will bite off your hand if you try to touch them! Especially you." She seemed to understand where her words were leading her, and bulled on ahead anyway. "Anyone who takes a moment to see you for who you are, not just a mage, will see how much of a noble, wonderful person you are."

Her words touched him deeply, right in that small part of him that always lamented the fact that he had been born as a mage. A smile started to curl his lips. "And I can't find anyone who is more loving and dedicated to her duty than you," he said, walking toward her as he spoke. She watched his approach with a soft, yet growing interest, which turned to a near wicked expression as he closed the last few steps between them and slid his arm around her waist. "Besides, to me you will always be Lady Seeker Cassandra, no matter what," he whispered into her ear.

Cassandra's face broke into a delighted grin and she laughed, the sound so alien to hear from her yet so _beautiful._ It was giddy and light, two things Cassandra never seemed to be but fit her so well. "Oh, you are sweet," she said, indulging him with a kiss. "And that is what I'm talking about."

Karaas stroked her face and kissed her again, always surprised by how fiercely she liked to kiss. "You deserve it. No one deserves more happiness than you."

"No, you do," Cassandra replied, tracing a finger down his jaw. "For everything you are and more." She shook her head a little, her gaze turning inward. "Look at how foolish we are being, bemoaning things in the past that we cannot change."

"Neither of us have tried to say that we aren't foolish," Kaaras countered, grinning a little as he spoke. "But thank you all the same."

Cassandra looked back up at him, her gaze weighted with something he couldn't place, before she suddenly pressed herself close and kissed him again. But this was an entirely different sort of kiss than the previous ones; it was tantalizing, teasing, and heat licked down his spine to coil in his gut from the sensations Cassandra's lips were wringing from him. Kaaras heard the moan in his throat and he was moving, grabbing Cassandra by the hips and pulling her closer. Even a wide as her hips were, they were still engulfed by his huge hands. If anything she loved it, her answering moan loud in his ears as she pushed into his grip.

Kaaras chuckled a little and bent closer to her ear, giving it a nip before whispering, "What are you doing?"

For once Cassandra seemed to be having a reaction that wasn't complete deference or respect. "You know exactly what," she responded, vague and teasing.

Kaaras was so surprised that he had to laugh a little. He loved it when she was naughty like this, when that veneer of calm and control melted and showed what she was really like inside. He smirked at her and a piece of a memory came to him, from a month ago when he had been browsing through poetry books to surprise Cassandra.

 _"She flies toward me, feet dancing,  
Her eyes pin mine upon her weighted gaze,  
Upon her shining sword.  
Her breasts heaving,  
Her breath panting,  
She swings at me  
And our swords cross."_

Cassandra was chuckling again as she listened to him. "I hope you know what they're _really_ talking about," she said, drawing lazy patterns in his chest.

"Of course I do," Kaaras said with a grin. "Isn't it obvious?"

She ran her hands down his waist, her eyes dark as she followed their path. "Inquisitor, you mean more to me than anyone else I have ever known. Let me show it to you, please."

That was a bit of a change, but not enough so that Kaaras was surprised by it. "Anything you want, Cassandra," he replied.

Immediately Cassandra went down to her knees, shocking him with her speed and lack of hesitation. Her hand palmed him through his breeches, watching as the bulge there grew bigger under her ministrations. Deft, sword-calloused fingers started undoing his buttons, freeing his manhood from the confines of the fabric so it could stretch to its full length.

Kaaras loved it, and the sight before him, but there was a small problem that bothered him. "Cass, you know that Quna-ahh! " his words were cut short as she wrapped her hand around him and started stroking.

The Seeker looked up at him smugly. "I can handle it," she said before leaning close to kiss his flesh. She kissed it over and over, still stroking him with her hands, and he watched in amazement. That is, until she opened her lips and and slid his cock between them.

"Ahh!" Kaaras cried out again, jerking his hips at the sensation of her hot, wet mouth on him. Even among Qunari it was sometimes hard to do oral and Cassandra was taking it all. "C-Cassandr- _ah!"_ His hands moved down to twine through her hair, mindlessly playing with the locks between his fingers.

All he got in response was a noise of pleasure coming from Cassandra's throat. She began to move in earnest, bobbing her head back and forth as she sucked him, taking him in so deep that he could feel her throat before moving back to his tip. It was a maddening, incredible cycle made only more great by how much Cassandra was enjoying it. Like everything she did, she put all of her efforts into it, but Kaaras could tell from the flushed cheeks and the noises she was making that it was affecting her just as much as it was him.

His skin burned and he shivered, feeling the first waves of pleasure coming across him. "Cass, I—" he gasped softly, unable to go on. Even his fingers started to flash with magic, tiny bits of frost coating them and Cassandra's hair.

Despite his lack of words, Cassandra seemed to understand. She pressed harder against him and her efforts increased, driving him even higher. Her lips were stretched so widely in order to take him, her dedication clear in the surprising softness to her eyes, until Kaaras was groaning loudly, his pleasure peaking in one incredible instant as Cassandra wrung it from him. Heat and stars flashed behind his eyes as waves of pleasure rolled over him, his magic crackling along his body as he tried to hold it back so he wouldn't hurt her.

He felt Cassandra eventually release him and he looked down to meet her eyes as she slowly got to her feet, wiping the white drops from her lips. Her gaze never left him and he couldn't stop himself from kissing her as she stood. Kaaras smiled against her lips, stroking her face in both of his hands. "You're amazing, my love," he said quietly, for her ears alone.

"Kaaras, it was—"

"Shh," he kissed her again. "You are amazing, there's nothing wrong with acknowledging that." He ran a finger down her neck slowly, feeling how her heart beat against his fingertips in excitement. "Let me return the favor."

"Oh no, Kaaras, I cannot. You do not have to do anything in return. In fact I—"

Kaaras put a finger to her lips to shush her. "I'm not doing it out of some sort of obligation. To tell the truth I've wanted to try something for a while and, well, I wanted to surprise you with it."

She raised an eyebrow, but he could see the intrigue clear on her face. "What do you mean by that?" she asked, her smile nearly impossible to contain.

Kaaras took her hand and led her back, winking at her as he did. Cassandra followed him, chuckling as they went to the bed and she laid obediently on it, waiting for whatever he had in mind. Kaaras, for his part, had already set up what he wanted to do: a vase with a single red rose inside. Getting one to bloom in the cold was a pain, but then again that was what magic was for.

Cassandra's face was a peculiar mix of horror and delight. "Kaaras, you didn't," she whispered.

He put the rose between his teeth. "Didn't what?" he replied, crawling close to her across the covers, reaching a hand out and running it up her leg.

A shiver wracked her body, heat rushing to her face. "You, you read my books!" she gasped at him, her face red from more than just passion. "I know you did!"

Earlier on in their relationship he might have thought that her reaction was a bad thing, but now he knew better. "And what of it?" he replied, taking the rose out of his mouth and twirling it between his fingers. "I'm an educated man, I like reading."

"Kaaras," she said, her voice heavy with unamusement. "Those books are horrible."

"And? I wanted to read some of your horrible books. Is that so bad?" He laid next to her and reached out his arm, letting the petals of the rose trail up her neck to her jaw, past her scar and tracing her cheek with the gentlest of touches.

Her eyes fluttered a little, sliding partially shut under the sensation. "Mmm, well, no not really," she replied, sounding almost like she had to force the words out. "But still, you're better than that."

"How about I decide what I'm good enough for?" Kaaras joked, trying to reach the other side of her neck. "Anything you enjoy is enough for me."

A chuckle came from her lips and he brushed the petals by them. "Alright, Inquisitor," she said, the title rolling from her lips like a purr. "If you say so."

"Much better," Kaaras said, his hand trailing idly along her side until he came to the hem of her shirt. He teased the edges for a few moments, letting the rose linger over her collar as he slid his hand under her clothes gently. He heard her moaning and she pressed into his touch ever so slightly, but when he brought the rose to follow the path of his hands it really changed. She shivered hard and it looked as if she was forcing herself to stay still underneath him, even as her fingers clawed at the blankets and twisted the fabric between them.

He worked slowly, wanting her to truly feel what he was doing as he began to lift her shirt over her head and trace the rose along her skin. "I know you're enjoying this, my dear," he whispered to her, sliding her shirt over her head and leaving her torso exposed. It was a beautiful sight that Kaaras never grew tired of. "Do you have any idea what I'm going to do to you?" He whispered into her neck, letting his lips barely touch her skin. He traced one of her breasts with the rose, moving in ever-tightening circles, making his slow way to the center.

Cassandra panted and he could feel her hands on his chest, swiftly undoing the buttons of his shirt. "Tell me," she replied, her voice somehow demanding and pleading all at once.

Kaaras let her work as he kept going. Now if he could remember how her books went... "I'm going to make this something to remember," he said, kissing her right between her breasts, letting his warm breath wash against her skin. "Even with all of the other times we make love, you will always remember this."

She shuddered underneath him, her hands tracing erratic patterns in his skin until she slid her hands under his shirt and yanked it from his body. "My love," she whispered softly, her accent making her voice even more husky. "Make me remember, my love. I need to feel you."

He kissed her neck, pressing his mouth hard against her, before moving lower, all the way down to her navel. His hand played with the hem of her pants, deliberately teasing before he suddenly unbuttoned them and yanked them down. "You're mine, all mine, mi amor." He drew his rose lower down, going so far as to caress her between her legs with it. She arched into him, panting and flushed, and her hands scratched his sides, quivering all over. Kaaras watched every movement, his heart racing inside his chest, until the rose dropped from his limp fingers and he grabbed her instead. He pulled her closer and fumbled at his pants, pushing them down and then starting to carefully enter her.

"Kaaras please!" Cassandra yelled, jerking her hips up again as if to take him fully. "Kaaras, deeper! Deeper, I need it!"

She was so loud that Kaaras was actually shocked, but he was barely paying attention to that over what she was saying. A low growl came from him and he obeyed, sheathing himself completely inside her in one swift movement and ah! She was so tight, so amazing and he wanted to do nothing more than grab her close and love her as hard as he could, which was exactly what he did. Cassandra was yelling and moving with him enthusiastically, even reaching to grab his horns as she did. He would have been amused but he had no room for it in his head, consumed by all of her and her heat around him. The heat teased at him, burning white in his veins that washed over him in waves and waves.  
It was so much, it was so good and-

Hands suddenly shoved at him, pushing his shoulders so hard that he was nearly thrown off her. Kaaras made a surprised noise and then noticed that Cassandra was coming with him, rolling over until she was climbing on top of him, taking him in fully once more. She held his horns again as she rode him up and down, crying with each movement, completely undone. Kaaras held her by her hips, watching how large they were against her and she was able to engulf his entire length and enjoy it. "Cassandra," he panted, moving with her the whole time. She was so wet, she had soaked their skin with each slap against each other.

"Yes, Kaaras! Inquisitor!" she replied, shaking all over. "I love you, I lov—ahh!" She screamed suddenly and her walls gripped him tightly as she came, bringing him to his orgasm as well.

Everything was like sunlight, so bright and warm surrounding them. He felt Cassandra slump against him and he held her against him, chuckling a little and then he was cut off by her lips against his. He kissed her back and caressed her rump, feeling her push back into his hand. "That was incredible, Cass," he whispered into her hair.

She looked up at him with a smile, a combination of content, loving, and amused. "You nearly burned me," she said, pointing at the soft red marks on her hips. Her voice held no reproach, just a hint of a chuckle.

"Oh hell, I'm sorry, I'll take care of that," he said, his fingers glowing with healing magic.

Her hand grabbed his. "No, I like them," she said with a wink. "They won't hinder my ability to fight, Inquisitor."

Kaaras shrugged and smiled back at her. "Alright, I'll just keep all those Templars off you until you recover."

"My hero," she murmured, laying herself on his chest. "My noble Inquisitor."

He played with her hair. "Feeling tired?"

She sat up with a wicked grin on her face. "Of course not."


	2. Unholy Pleasures

The papers on the desk in front of him swam before his eyes, becoming indistinct shapes until Kaaras finally gave up fighting against it and leaned back in his chair, rubbing his fingertips into his eyes to scrape away whatever nonsense was there so he could get back to work. His movements were far rougher than usual, bordering on painful, even, but the harshness of it helped sharpen his mind. He still had quite some time yet to go on this task and he needed to be as clear as ever if he was going to get through it any time soon. Then he could relax and just...yeah, relax. Relax away from everyone, from _everything._

Throwing himself into work was not the best way to ease his mind, it seemed, but it certainly occupied it for a while. Even if as the hours crawled by his mental state felt more and more akin to a rat trying to chew through a log, so repetitive with no clear results, yet filled out with a brainless devotion. It was either that or go drinking, he supposed, and Bull would be in the tavern and no doubt pick up on his mood and Cole would too and also everyone else in Skyhold. He knew how the Inquisition could get when the Inquisitor was not feeling one hundred percent full and confident of himself, they all basically functioned on his self-esteem, so he knew where that path would lead.

Alright, time to get back to it, he supposed. He knew how he could get when he could start to think about things, it would take up all of his time and concentration because if Kaaras was being perfectly honest with himself he just wasn't a very good multitasker. Magic he could do that with, yes, but that was magic and only magic. The rest he made up for in being able to throw his entire attention at the problem until he worked it out with little distractions. Unlike now.

Really, _now_ time to get back to it.

He leaned back into his previous sitting position and started on one of the reports he had been crunching through earlier. He picked it up and squinted, trying to focus.

The words seemed blurred, dancing in front of his eyes, and Kaaras had _no idea_ what they were trying to tell him.

With a groan he dropped it back and rested his head on his hand, massaging his scalp with his fingers as he stared. And stared. He had to get back to work, had to, he couldn't lay around and think or else-

"I could do that for you."

He jumped at the sudden voice, even if a smile immediately found its way on his lips as he spun around to see Cassandra at the top of the steps, looking at him in surprise. "Cass! Glad you're here." He tried to pat his hair back in to place where his fingers had messed it up. "Did you need something?"

Cassandra's expression never wavered. "You didn't hear me knocking? Or coming in?"

His smile froze in place. "No?" He didn't mean for that to sound like a question, just his utter surprise made his voice curl at the end. Frantically he tried to remember if he heard anything strange within the past few minutes and came up with nothing. Honestly what a terrible Inquisitor he was if he was so oblivious to his surroundings that even Cassandra could come in without him noticing. An assassin wouldn't even have to try to stay hidden.

The Seeker gazed at him, open concern on her face that made him feel almost shy in front of her. Like he was caught doing something he shouldn't have. Which was utterly ridiculous, these were just reports, not instructions for summoning demons! "You've been up here all day," Cassandra said, coming closer until she was at his desk, her eyes flicking to the papers scattered across it. "I've come to tell you to take a break."

Kaaras felt the smile growing wider, and he took her offered hand and kissed it, trying to charm his way out of her scrutiny. "I'm getting my Inquisitor duties done. You wouldn't want me to be seen as slacking, would you?" he asked, twining their fingers together.

A ghost of a smile flitted across Cassandra's face before she picked up his dropped report and glanced at it. "The amount of lazurite deposits found in the Western Approach is important to 'Inquisitor duties'?" she remarked wryly, her amusement only growing as Kaaras snatched it from her and tried to read over it. Then she-well, she did not gasp because Cassandra Pentaghast did not _gasp,_ but it was rather close. "What happened to your eyes?" She reached out with her free hand to touch his face.

He blinked, suddenly wondering how red his eyes must have been. "Tired, is all," he said as if the casualness of his tone could make her brush it off like he was doing.

"I'll kill them."

Her low, serious growl crashed his thoughts to a halt and he whipped around to look at her in shock. "Who? And no, no killing dear. Unless it's Venatori or Red Templars."

"Those people who upset you," she said, ignoring half of what he said and squeezing his hand tightly. "Those people we saw in Val Royeuax who were protesting the Inquisition. All those things they said that weren't true-I thought you said that they didn't bother you?"

"They didn't," Kaaras lied, and it must have been a pretty bad lie because Cassandra gave him _that_ look.

She crossed her arms. "You were very quiet on the whole trip back. And the second we come through the gates you go off and grab all of the reports off the War Table and lock yourself up here." She quirked an eyebrow at him. "Even Blackwall asked if something was wrong and he barely leaves his barn. I have no idea how he found out."

Kaaras mirrored her pose, his becoming more defensive as he arranged himself. "Well, they didn't at the time," he amended, unconsciously giving in some to the truth of her words. "I thought they were just being idiots."

"And now?" she pressed.

Something in his chest flopped, like a fish making desperate attempt to get back into the water it was so rudely dislodged from. "I-" he began and his words stopped as he realized he didn't have any words to say. He refused to lie to Cassandra (about anything genuine, anyway) and he had no words for the truth. "It's just-"

Cassandra's mouth dropped out of her hard line and she reached her hand again, gently prying him into a more relaxed posture. "I understand," she said gently. "You can fight men, demons, and even dragons, but for some reason words will cut deeper than any of them."

Her skin felt warm against his own and he relished in that one simple pleasure it brought. "I just don't see how they can possibly believe their own words," he admitted, gently uncoiling himself from that ball of hurt that sat in his chest like a stone. "We've closed the Breach, I've worn out three pairs of shoes running around their whole country closing _their_ rifts, we're going to _save their empress_ and they don't even know it yet, how can they just stand there and blindly hate?"

"Does it matter what they think? You know in your heart as well as I do that the Inquisition is doing the right thing for the people. Why would you let anything get in the way like that?"

There it was, one of the many things that he loved about Cassandra: her single-minded devotion to a cause, perfect for a soldier of the Chantry. But-"Because we need the people as much as they need us. And I, well doesn't it feel bad when people don't like you even if you haven't done anything to deserve it?" He was a softer person.

She caressed his hand a little in both of her own, kneading the back with her thumbs in a way that was not wholly unpleasant. "Perhaps, but we will let Josephine sort that mess out, she loves it. You should care more about the opinions of those who matter, like us."

He squeezed her hand back, amazed by how it seemed to vanish within his own. Cassandra was always so serious and hard that he always thought of her as bigger than she really was. "Your opinion means more to me than any other," he said sincerely. "And that goes for the rest of the Inquisition, too."

"Good," she said, a sly smile curving on her face at his words. She reached up to trace his face and pulled him down to kiss her, her lips more bold than what he was used to. "Now with that I can pry you away from these reports for a bit. I have another way to occupy your time."

There was something about her tone that made him smirk back. It was very unlike Cassandra, and Kaaras loved surprises. "Like what?" he said, taking the bait and waiting for her to spring something on him.

She blushed deeply and looked down, becoming that shy woman he laid out candles for under a moonlit sky. There were always so many facets to her, each new piece of conversation revealing another side that might tease at him with something new before it was hidden away again. Kaaras loved all of it, it was like each time they spoke he discovered a new, tiny piece of her that he had never seen before, slowly painting him a full portrait of the woman he loved.

When she looked up again, there was a new facet in place, one he had never seen before: allure. "I was thinking of showing you exactly why you're _my_ Inquisitor," she nearly purring, rolling the syllables of his title in a deliberate way that made his spine tingle. "And where the rest of those Chantry buffoons can stick their complaints."

"Aren't you one of those Chantry buffoons?" Kaaras questioned with a smirk. "You are a Seeker and all."

" _I_ am working for the right and noble cause of the Inquisition," Cassandra fired back with a rapidity that told him she was expecting that kind of response. "It does not count in the slightest." She drew a finger down his chest, following the curve of his muscles just barely while her cheeks were still stained the slightest trace of pink.

Kaaras leaned into the touch, feeling a slow, kindling flame burning under his skin where she touched him. It made his hairs stand up and his senses become much sharper, exhaustion completely forgotten. "And how exactly am I _your_ Inquisitor?" he questioned, chuckling at how Cassandra led him on and liked to make him pry the answers out of her. "There were a lot of Inquisitors in the past, you know."

"With this," Cassandra said and stood up on her toes to kiss him, pulling him down as she did.

He responded to her game eagerly, bending down to kiss her without her guiding pull and one arm slipping around her waist while his free hand grabbed one of her own. He pressed her closer and he felt Cassandra's gasp against his lips, causing him to chuckle as she kissed him back eagerly, caught in the whirl of their game. She was sweet and warm in his arms, but there was such a wicked heat in the way she kissed him it lit his bones on fire and a small part of him marveled at Cassandra actually being bold and forward enough to do _this_ for him.

Until a brand of true fire erupted across his skin as Cassandra gripped his hand tightly and the anchor crackled in response, flooding his sight with a sickening green light that he could see even with his eyes close. Kaaras hissed in pain and jerked away, wrestling the unstable magic of the anchor down with his own while he rubbed the skin of his palm with his free hand to calm it down. Maker he _hated_ that, every time he thought that blasted thing had calmed down and integrated with his body it would flare up again.

Cassandra watched him, her eyes wide and yet her expression calculating and suspicious. It was a rather comical sight and if Kaaras hadn't been busy dealing with the needlelike pain of his hand he would have said something about it. "Does that happen often?" she questioned.

"Hardly," Kaaras replied back, watching the glow fade away. "I can count on my hands the amount of times that has happened since I got it." There, now his hand was back to the usual strange, shimmery-green color that slashed across his palm whenever the anchor was dormant. He shook his hand a little for good measure and looked up with a smile. "Although this was probably the most inconvenient time of them all."

He thought that Cassandra would be deterred by what she just saw. Instead she seemed to consider it, then shrugged and approached him again, taking his other hand this time. "I'll get someone to look at it later," she promised, kissing him again. This time it was softer, a gentle easing back into what they were doing before.

Kaaras leaped into it eagerly, his frayed nerves itching to experience something that wasn't the fading vestiges of pain from his hand. He devoured her mouth with kisses and she gave it right back, moaning into his mouth as he kissed her over and over again, relishing in the feeling of _everything_ being taken away. The pain of the anchor, doubts of the Inquisition, all those annoying naysayers, even that mountain of paperwork just a few inches behind him seemed as far away as the Maker Himself. The only things in the whole of Thedas were him, Cassandra, and the rest of the Inquisition which even then were fading farther and farther away into his mind.

Cassandra's hands cupped his face again, then started their slow, deliberate trek downwards. They followed the pulsing beats of his blood in his neck, down his chest where his heart pounded through all of it, and paused for a moment. He, on the other hand, never stopped his kisses and traced down her back instead, his hands ending up on top of her hip bones where he massaged the flesh there gently. The warrior softened under his touch and she opened before him, her lips parting under his tongue and letting him inside, taking him in such a way that sent his mind straight between his legs, which was already twitching to life in his breeches. He had no idea if Cassandra could feel that yet but she had to know where it was leading, she _never_ kissed him like this unless—

He broke away from her for a moment. It was for barely a centimeter, so close he could feel the heat of her skin on his lips, but even that was enough to make him think just a little more than what he was doing a second ago. "What are you doing?" he asked. He meant to ask that with far more amusement than what came out, but his breathless panting ruined it.

Fingers tugged deliciously through his hair, a very distracting sensation that had his eyes fluttering a little but Cassandra's gravelly voice kept him focused on what she was saying. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

She was...being _coy._ He could hear that in her voice, it was a coy tone of voice but Cassandra hardly talked like that and he wasn't sure if he even heard her right.

He could only run with what he thought was right and he decided to play back. "I think you do," he chuckled, kissing her neck and listening to her gasp. "What is this sudden coming up here and doing this. You're not the seducing type, Cass."

"I am for my Inquisitor," Cassandra said with an open smile. She gave a slight shrug, as if her behavior confused even her. "Besides I said I would cheer you up in a way the Chantry would hate." One hand reached up to place a finger on his lips "Now be quiet."

Kaaras smirked, glibness always being one of his traits, but Cassandra seemed to sense the oncoming words and she reached down to cup him. Oh yes she had _definitely_ been aware of that, the way she was stroking him only made him harder as the fabric gently scraped against his skin. He panted slightly and Cassandra reached up to kiss him again, swallowing all of his moans and gently echoing them with hers. She massaged him, Maker she was _so_ good how in the world could this be natural, running her hand up and down his length through the fabric teasingly. She would move in such a way that made him think that she would slide her hand into his pants completely, except she never did and left him dancing on the edge of her movements, all the while a little grin on her face that told him she knew exactly what she was doing.

He let a small, forced laugh escape him. "Your right hand, hm?" he questioned, his natural cheekiness unable to be held back for long. It always made Cassandra touch him harder, she was so easy to play with sometimes, just like he was.

Her brows scowled at him. "What does that mean?" she said, giving him a squeeze that had a growl slipping out of him. If anything she seemed to like it and squeezed harder, tugging him a little for good measure.

Kaaras didn't answer, he had enough. He thanked the Maker once again for making him a qunari because even though he was a mage it wasn't very difficult to bend down and sling her over his shoulder, much to Cassandra's loud and very ladylike squeal. He ignored the hand slapping his shoulder as he carried her over to the bed, listening to her thread of laughter that she was trying far too hard to conceal without much success. "It means you're good, my love!" he said cheerily, catching her in his arms and setting her on the bed not quite gently, but he simply wasn't going to throw her down either. Immediately he went to undoing her buckles and shirt, tugging at it impatiently and trying to ignore the part between his legs that was selfishly demanding his attention.

After he fumbled a buckle for the third time Cassandra decided to take pity on him and gently pushed his hands away, undoing her clothes with far more efficiency even though her face was just as flushed as his. Her eyes were dark and excited and she never took her gaze off of him, even when his hungry hands roamed under her shirt and cupped her breasts in his hands. "A-ah Kaaras!" she panted a little as he began his work, undressing her further even as he lavished her revealing body with attention. "If I had known you would be—ah—like this I would have tried this much s-sooner." Her hands gripped his shirt tightly in spite of her efforts to keep a level voice and he swore he could hear the fabric starting to tear as she tried to jerk it off.

It was a nice shirt and he decided to help her, peeling it off of him in one swift movement and then going back to what he was doing. An idea started to come to him and he smirked down at her. "You wanted to please your Inquisitor? Then do it," he said, turning over and bringing her with him. He heard her gasp but she climbed on top of him easily enough, nearly sitting right on the bulge in his pants. She had to know, especially with how she rolled her still-clothed hips into it.

"Oh yes Inquisitor," she purred, biting her lip and hooking a finger into his pants to slowly drag them down. Her eyes were unabashedly excited as she watched his length spring free, eager to be out after all of the teasing from earlier. She moved as if to unbutton her pants but Kaaras's hand on her wrist stopped her.

"Not yet," Kaaras said in response to her puzzled look. "I want it with your hand, first." He kept his voice low and commanding, the voice of Inquisitor Adaar, not Kaaras.

A shiver ran through Cassandra, visible only in the slight tremor that went from her shoulders to her spine, but it was enough to see. "Yes, Inquisitor," she said in a husky voice. She wrapped her fingers around his length again and began stroking him in that perfectly firm grip of hers, starting in long, drawn-out movements.

Kaaras knew she was being slow on purpose, but that didn't stop him from enjoying the hundreds of sensations that she wrung from him as she did. He arched into her touch, growling once more and panting through his parted lips, trying not to be too excited and throw her off but it was a hard effort. Cassandra seemed to be doing everything in her skills to please him and have him make as much noise as possible, something he indulged her in by giving her as many moans and growls as he could make without sounding ridiculous. But Cassandra did not notice or she did not care, obsessed as she was with giving him pleasure and listening to how much he loved what she was doing to him.

He grabbed her hips as he rolled into her touch, his nails lightly scratching her in his movements. She was doing so good, praises spilling from his lips as he became faster, more erratic as he reached nearer to his completion. "Cass!" he yelled as he nearly curved off the bed as he climaxed, strings of white shooting from his length as Cassandra held him tighter, squeezing him out for all he was worth until he flopped back down, panting heavily.

But she wasn't done with him, not in the slightest. "Not yet, Inquisitor," she said, bending down to swipe her tongue along his softening length. It was so hot and sudden against his skin that he gasped, immediately his senses alive once more. She sucked and pressed his length into her mouth, sucking the tip and swirling her tongue around until he started to get hard once more in her mouth.

"Maker help me, Cassandra, you're amazing."

She answered him with a chuckle, this time undoing her pants and sliding out of them while she still held him wrapped in her hand. "Everything for my Inquisitor," she said with such sincerity that he had to smile. Yet a part of him wondered if she liked that Maker bit.

Cassandra rolled her hips a little, teasing him with her wetness, at the idea of him going inside of her, until he was coated with her juices. She grinned at him, watching all of his moans and writhing eagerly until he couldn't stand it anymore and squeezed her hips tightly, holding her in place while he thrust up and entered her. Immediately her grin was wiped away and replaced with ecstasy as she felt him filling her, stretching her deeply with all of his length. "Yes, yes Kaaras!" she howled, digging her nails into him and riding into his thrusts hard and fast, showing just how much she had been restraining herself as well.

Kaaras had enough and moved harder, holding her hips and pulling her onto him with each thrust until he wanted to die from all of the pleasure and heat that assaulted his senses. Cries came from his throat, loud and deep as she clenched around him tighter and tighter until—" _Aahh!"_ he yelled as he came again, filling her inside with his seed and watching her shudder him it. "C-Cass," he whispered.

"Yes, I-I—" Cassandra tried to reply, her walls spasming, before she gave up and bent down to kiss him deeply.

Oh, this was one of the best ideas they had ever had. It was absolutely worth it getting yelled at by a bunch of Chantry nuts if it led to _this._


	3. Covetous Combat

Everything seemed so golden now, so much lighter than it usually was. Skyhold was not at all a place that projected such an image, with its cold gray stones and harsh, sharp edges that rose bluntly from the craggy mountains with all the subtlety of a brick, but Cassandra was not bothered by the appearance at all. Most days she liked it, in fact, liked its boldness, so the change she saw now was stunning in its audacity. She found herself craning her head around as she walked, taking in the fortress in its new light with all of her attention, drinking in the sight like she had when she very first laid eyes on it.

What had changed? There were days when the sun shone more yellow and less gray, but never like this before. The shafts of light that peeked over the roofs threw golden beams into the courtyard below, so hazy as if she was walking through a dream, making every leaf and stone softer, almost less real. Cassandra felt much the same, warm and soft, like some part of her that she had been holding tense inside of her had finally relaxed, and Skyhold had changed with it. Maybe it had always looked this way and she had just never noticed it before because she saw it through a different set of eyes that did not see and appreciate the softness of the world?

She heard a chuckle behind her and her head snapped around, not recognizing the voice. But she recognized the woman's face: the mage Empress Celene sent to help them against Corypheus. The _apostate,_ a witch originating from the swamps of southern Ferelden where barbarians like the Chasind lived. Although according to Leliana this wild woman was Morrigan, one of the companions who travelled with her when they were helping the Hero of Ferelden during the Blight...and apparently his lover, too. Also gossip from Leliana.

"He is that good, isn't he?" Morrigan said casually, leaning her back against the edge of the parapet, apparently unmindful of the cold.

Cassandra raised an eyebrow at her, already hating that smug, knowing look on her face. Who was she to make such assumptions about her? "What are you talking about?" she asked, keeping her voice polite.

"Please, Seeker, I am no fool. I see it clearly in your face." Morrigan crossed her arms, her expression unchanged. "All day you spent glaring at everyone and being generally angry at everything, then you vanish for a while with the Inquisitor and when you return you look..." she gestured at Cassandra with a slow wave of her hand. "Like this. Like he handed you the moon."

She felt her cheeks burning and clamped down her jaw in defence, her brows furrowing at the witch. "That is none of your business," she said coldly, turning away to look back over Skyhold. Even despite Morrigan's words the golden haze still remained, not even she in all of her nosiness could drive that away. Maybe it wasn't Cassandra, then, maybe the world itself had changed.

"Oh?" The curl in Morrigan's voice was sharp and yanked Cassandra's attention like a hook. It was full of offense but also with that distinct tone of someone who was offended and trying very hard to sound like they weren't. "I would say otherwise, considering you have devoted yourself to prying out every secret between myself and the Warden. I thought it only a fair trade."

Oh Maker how many people did Leliana tell? Cassandra had to force herself not to rub her face in response, even though her cheeks were still very annoyingly warm against the cold air. "I was merely trying to find out where he was," she said, not facing Morrigan as she spoke. "I did not wish to pry into your personal life."

"You could have simply asked me," Morrigan replied promptly. "I just wanted to see the Inquisitor and his lady who find themselves so important as to invade the privacy of myself and my Warden and look at what I find here! It seems we are not so different, you and I. At least in matters like this."

"What do you want, mage?" Cassandra snapped, the word slipping out of her automatically and she nearly flinched in response. She squashed her natural embarrassment down and kept her stony expression, as if "mage" was something she said every day.

"I am getting it right now, no need to worry," Morrigan said in that utterly infuriating smug voice of hers. She came closer, turning and placing her elbows on the parapet, mirroring Cassandra's posture. "I used to be like you, you know."

"I very much doubt that," was out of Cassandra's mouth before she could stop herself. No, she would not play these games with her, this was no Orlesian court.

"But 'tis true," Morrigan went on, unperturbed. "I used to be cold like that, harsh."

"When did you ever stop?" Cassandra interrupted, smirking a little to herself at Morrigan's scowl.

"Never," the witch said, sounding all too proud of herself at the fact. "But after being with him I would...change. Darrian would never stop commenting on it." Her eyes flitted to Cassandra, that unsettling shade of gold and green that spoke far too much of magic for Cassandra's taste. "And you have it, too, far worse if I am any judge. He _is_ a qunari after all, so I suppose-"

 _That_ was enough. "I am not going to stand around and listen to this," she announced, turning and taking a few long, striding steps.

"My man is far better, though."

"He is _not!"_ The words burst forth from Cassandra's mouth, righteous anger and offense the driving force behind her as she whirled around, ready to defend Kaaras's honor against anyone who would dare speak ill of him. A moment too late she realized what she had said and she could _feel_ her face growing hot, so incredibly hot that the sun blazing down on her in the dunes of the Western Approach would have felt like a fresh spring day in comparison.

Morrigan sidled closer, her movements reflecting all of the deliberate grace and predatory swagger of a hunting cat. "Touchy, aren't we?" she said, savoring the words on her lips. "Perhaps your eagerness to defend him speaks of some insecurity that you have. Maybe he isn't as good as you think. I bet there have been times when you weren't as pleased as-"

Her sword was out of its sheath before Morrigan could even start on her next word, the tip hovering just above her collarbone. "Don't you _dare,"_ Cassandra growled, her hand tight on the hilt, anger pumping hot in her veins.

"Tch," Morrigan replied, placing two fingers on the side of the blade and moving it aside, as if brushing a cobweb from her. "Calm yourself. All of your posturing does nothing but make my argument the stronger one." But then a smile curled across her face. "I can tell you a few things, actually."

What she wanted to tell was blatantly obvious. "I do not need anything from you," Cassandra said, still holding her sword out but not returning it to Morrigan's neck.

"It seems you do, if such audacious displays are your first reaction when you hear something you dislike." Morrigan tossed her head a little, flipping that fringe of hair out of her eyes, and gazed at Cassandra out of the corner of her eyes. "Besides, wouldn't you like to know how to _truly_ please a man? I have had the _Hero of Ferelden_ bend to my skill, and I have felt the full strength of his passion. Perhaps you and your Inquisitor have felt the same, but how can you truly know unless you listen to me?"

Cassandra faltered, her anger stuttering on the sincerity of Morrigan's tone. At least, what sounded like sincerity. She still did not truly trust the witch, no matter the sweet words she spun from the air; if anything that made her more dangerous. "Why do you wish to, so badly?" Cassandra asked.

"Tis not important," Morrigan replied. "If I wished to know about your liaisons then I could simply do it without going to you." Her eyes flicked up. "Besides, you wish to know things about him? Fine. _I_ can tell you things." She started drawing little patterns on the stone with her fingertips, leaving trails of frost in her wake. "Things that no one else could possibly know about Darrian. Things that he and I shared. Then we shall see who is better. "

Cassandra snorted a little. "Kaaras is better, there is no question about it."

"Did Kaaras slay an archdemon?"

" _That_ ," Cassandra said, bristling. "Is not the _point._ Nor does it have anything to do with-"

"So he is the better man, then, and therefore the greater lover."

"If you think some archaic-"

"I made him _scream_ , did you?" Morrigan pushed ahead, ignoring the interruption. She grinned at Cassandra's expression. "Aahhh, that got your attention I see. It goes like this-"

For once in the night, the sky was cloudy and not a trace of starlight pierced the heavens to light the camp below. Which was not truly a problem except for them because it was much harder to find their way around the area without any light. They had let their fire die down so none of the others could see them, which meant they had to nearly stumble their way around her tent.

"This is so unfair," Darrian said, his voice filled with laughter. "You're _used_ to this you sneaky witch, you ran around the Wilds at night all the time. I've been inside Denerim most of my life."

Morrigan chuckled softly, her steps sure and even despite the near total darkness. Indeed she was used to moving around wooded areas in night time, it was as if her body knew instinctively where to place her feet so she would nor stumble or fall. "And I could not move about a city as skilfully as I could the wilderness," she replied. "We all have our weaknesses and strengths."

"So you admit you have a weakness, then," Darrian replied smugly, how a cat might sound before he pounced.

She bristled at his words. "I _never-"_ she started to say but was cut off by his weight suddenly crashing into her and lifting her off her feet. Only her long years of living in the harsh Chasind lands stopped her from screaming, her first instinct, and when she was slung over Darrian's shoulder her voice burst out into laughter instead.

"Caught you," Darrian said, the smirk in his voice obvious. She felt a light slap on her hip and jerked, hearing his responding chuckle as she tried to wiggle out of his grip.

There was a swish of fabric as he ducked into the tent, plunging them into a true, deeper blackness that not even the coals from their fire could penetrate. The lack of sight made her heart pound, her ears tingle as all of her other senses seemed to come alive to make up for it. Darrian stopped and then heaved, slinging her off his shoulder and catching her, then setting her down gently. "Oh don't spare me a moment of having to walk on my own," Morrigan scoffed, trying her best not to giggle and sound truly offended.

"Be quiet," Darrian ordered and kissed her, just like that. She loved that, his fire and how harsh he could be in bed. His hands were on her, pinning her down with his weight and devouring her mouth with his, all energy and darkness around them like the taint in his burning blood. How could she have ever thought that laying with a Grey Warden would not be worth it? She should have never let her impressions of Alistair sour the whole order for her.

She brought her hands up to run them along his sides, letting tiny fragments of electricity dance between her fingertips as she did. Darrian jerked, groaning under her touch and shuddering all over his body. She teased his shirt, peeling it off of his body and tossing it aside. His skin was exposed to her now and she relished in roaming her hands over him, having to find her way across all of the familiar planes through touch alone. Her clothes were not nearly so covering, though, and Darrian only had to run his hand down her chest and then slide it under the purple folds of her vestments and he could cup her breast just like that.

Morrigan gasped and clenched her hands, digging her nails into him, feeling the wiry sinews of his muscles under her touch. Her back arched a little, into him, while her panting breaths pushed her into his grip more and more, in peaks and valleys. Then she felt him bend down and he pushed her clothes away entirely, leaving her only in her leather undergarments which could be pulled away with a simple tug and then his mouth was on her breasts. Morrigan cried out, her nails clawing down Darrian's back because there was no other way she could tell him how much she loved his burning hot, wet mouth on her nipples, sucking and swirling his tongue around them. It made every single nerve in her body come alive, so sensitive to every tiny movement from him-

 _"Is it really necessary to go into such detail?" Cassandra asked, pointedly looking somewhere else._

 _"Mm, shy aren't we, Lady Seeker? Do not look so affronted, I can see your face. Do not worry, it very much is."_

She writhed under his touch, panting and groaning softly and tangling her hands in Darrian's hair to push him into her, to make him go harder, more intense. Pain shot through her chest and down her spine as she felt Darrian's teeth bite down on her, but it was the most delicious type of pain that went right between her legs and coiled into a tight knot there, making her ache so deep inside she wanted to scream from it.

"Darrian," she growled, even while her voice was shuddering as much as her body. She hated that, but he loved it so she didn't mind near as much as she would have.

"Yes~?" he murmured, his voice nearly singing as he curled around the words. That smug, sneaky little- "Something you wanted to say, Morrigan?"

"Oh don't you get such a high and mighty tone with me, yo-aah!" She squeaked as he bit her again, her hips instinctively jerking into him. She dragged her hands down his back, vengeance on her mind as she started to slip her hands into his pants. He all but sprang free when she gave him even the smallest bit of space and she wrapped her hand around his length, starting off on hard strokes immediately. They both liked it hard, liked being forceful with each other, just as much where they were full of days of being slow and sweet with each other.

Darrian moaned lowly, his voice rumbling next to her ear as he rolled his hips into her touch. "Wild witch," he whispered into her ear, his hand on her hip and hooking under the edge of her skirts. He pulled, hard, and half of it slipped off of her.

She loved that, lifting her hips to help him. "Do not tear my clothes in your passion, my wild man," she purred, using one of her hands to push down the other half of her skirts and then kicking them off when they were low enough.

"You can wear those tears as a badge of honor," Darrian said, his tone only half of a joke. "How many other women have had a man who desired them so much that their clothes became torn in their passion?" His free hand reached down to cup her heat, listening to how her breath hitched at the touch.

She jerked down his pants, finally freeing him. "None," she growled, gripping him tightly in her hand, possessively. Magic swirled along her hand, the red of fire yet not even a breath of flame was present. The heat still was, though, and she could hear Darrian groaning as the heat swathed him while she stroked, moving fast and hard and-

 _"And just how is this supposed to help me if I cannot do magic?" Cassandra asked dryly, arching an eyebrow at Morrigan._

 _"You can still try such things even when you are not a mage," Morrigan replied, a hint defensively._

 _"But what makes them special is that you are a mage using your magic whenever you do such things," Cassandra said. Her lips started to curl in a small, sly smile. "Besides, you are but a mage, easily replaceable if one wants to find such things. But I am a_ Seeker. _My powers are truly unique._ And _I also have a mage on top of it."_

 _"I believe the common wisdom says that it does not matter what skills and traits you possess, but how you employ them."_

 _Cassandra smirked, rolling her shoulders. "Bitterness suits you, I see. Now, let me tell you something I once did."_

They fell back onto the bed, Kaaras's chuckle deep in her ear as she settled herself on him, her nails digging into his huge shoulders and pressing her breasts into him while she wiggled her hips, teasing the head of his length with her wet folds without letting him inside of her just yet. She grinned watching the tiny snarl flickering across his face, his frustration at being teased rising in him without quite breaking through just yet. Cassandra always loved doing this, loved testing how far she could drag Kaaras along until he lost his mind and then took her right then and there.

"Cass," he growled, his fingers gripping her hips so hard she was sure they would bruise later. She would wear the marks with pride, run her own fingers over them whenever she would stare at herself in the mirror.

She bent down to run her tongue slowly up his collar, following the crest of the bone she could feel under his skin. "Kaaras," she whispered against him, listening to his low groan.

Cold started to bite her skin, frost covering his fingers and turning her red as a result of it. She flinched a little, then reached into that well of power she held inside of herself, remembered her meditations, and let it loose. Immediately the magic was cut off, not slammed shut like a Templar's abilities, but strangled in her grip, held within her hands. Cassandra could feel the lyrium in his blood burning across her nerves, her lips parting in ecstasy at the sensation that made her feel as if the sun was inside of her veins.

Kaaras on the other hand _groaned,_ a sound that was all but echoing off the walls with how it ripped out of his throat. "Cassandra!" he yelled, grabbing her hips and sinking her down on him.

Cassandra _screamed_ in joy, the feeling bringing her higher and higher to that perfect peak that only physical pleasure and emotion could create. "Kaaras!" she shouted back, lifting her hips and helping him with her, riding him out on every movement he forced her to have. It was incredible, the cycle of being filled over and over and her nerves being stretched to their fullest again and again.

Under her, Kaaras jerked his hips, those muscled hips so perfect, as if they were made for this. Cassandra clawed at his skin, crying out and gasping, hardly able to breathe because of all the pleasure filling her body. The qunari kept up with her, even driving her faster than she was able to keep up, turning into that passionate, incredibly driven man that she had come to know and love more deeply than anything she had ever known. It was all she could do to simply hold on, to try and keep up with him and yet hold onto that magic and lyrium that made her blood burn and her heart sing.

It was so much-

 _"Well, you don't need to hear the rest," Cassandra coughed, as if she suddenly realized how far she was going. Her face was red, but that seemed to be a fact she had come to accept, even if she ignored it._

 _"Interesting," Morrigan said, examining her nails with forced disinterest."But I will say that none of that compares to say, blood magic."_

 _Cassandra whipped her head around, eyes flashing. "You have practiced the forbidden arts?" she hissed._

 _"Not in the way you understand," Morrigan replied calmly, her frown mirroring the Seeker's. "Your Chantry calls all that it does not understand 'blood magic.' I know very ancient magics, magic of nature and deep, primal things. It can involve blood but it is not summoning demons or controlling minds."_

 _The words were terrifying in their implications. Cassandra had no idea how to counter such things and not even what type of magic it was."Blood magic is more than summoning demons," she said, her tone falling flat to even her own ears._

 _"It saved Darrian's life," Morrigan replied, her words filled with conviction that Cassandra knew she couldn't shake. "And twas_ far _better than anything your Seeker powers could draw out."_

He was so thick inside of her, thick and _hot_ in a way that she had never felt before. Morrigan drew her hands down Darrian's chest, tracing patterns and sigils in his skin that only she understood. Some in elven, some that she had made up herself, all of it weaving her spell around the both of them, binding her and the Grey Warden together. She needed his taint and his seed and needed it to work just so, she needed to conceive a child.

Her blood dripped down her fingertips. She wanted to wipe it away, for it tickled her skin, but she ignored it.

"What do these mean?" Darrian whispered, reaching his hand up to touch one of the sigils she had drawn.

She slapped his hand away. "Do not touch." Her blood was needed just as much as his, for she was just as much as part of the ritual as he was. Then she reached into the both of them with her magic, drawing upon her blood and feeling for his own, and forced it to _rise._

Immediately she came, screaming as light exploded behind her eyes, her waters gushing over Darrian even as she could feel him filling her inside. Gods she knew that would happen but she had no idea how intense it would be, stretching on and on like it would last for eternity, each second of pleasure blazing across her bones. She didn't want it to end, wanted to exist only in this moment forever and ever-

"When was this?" Cassandra asked.

"Before we marched to Denerim to confront the archdemon."

Cassandra raised her eyebrows. "You planned to conceive your child then? Wait, don't tell me, I don't want to know. I have done better with no practice of blood magic."

"I have yet to see it," Morrigan said with a smirk. "My lover stopped a Blight and saved all of Thedas. Yours?"

"Is dealing with a creature who wants to be a _god._ He is stopping just as much of a threat, _and_ he is better in bed."

"Now now ladies, no need to fight over me!"

Cassandra's breath stopped. _No,_ Maker please _no._ But she knew that voice, she was not so silly to think she had imagined it. She turned around slowly, her gaze falling upon Kaaras who was leaning against the wall with all the carelessness int he world. "How long have you been there?" she demanded.

He shrugged. "Oh, long enough. I was going to say something but you were both talking about so many interesting things that I didn't want to interrupt. You're both great storytellers you know."

Cassandra felt her face going white. He-he _heard?!_

Morrigan's outburst of laughter made her jump and she whirled around to glare at the witch. Her golden eyes were alight with amusement, a victorious smirk dancing across her features, as if she had been waiting for this to happen for a long time.

Maker she _hated_ her.


	4. Tall Tales

"Are they _still_ going at it?" Alistair's voice could be heard announcing his presence long before his unruly tuft of hair appeared over the lip of the stairs, the rest of his head and shoulders following him moments later as he continued to climb. His face was caught in an expression of bewilderment and nervousness, although the latter could have been due to the fact that he was carrying a tray overflowing with mugs and was trying his hardest not to trip and let them all fall. Whose idea was it to send _him_ down again?

Wait, theirs. Right. Varric had gotten out of it by saying he was the least fit out of all of them to carry a bunch of drinks up a flight of stairs (being a dwarf _did_ have its advantages once in a while) and Iron Bull was already drunk enough to be boasting that he could carry the whole tray up on his horns. So naturally the task fell to Alistair, whose certifying quality of being one of the _clumsiest_ people Varric had ever seen managed to make him the most capable person among their trio for the job.

Maker, how did he get himself into these things again?

"Oh yeah, you missed a _great_ one!" Bull guffawed, his voice nearly rattling the dishes on the table. "The crazy witch was in the middle of saying she was using her spider webs to tie the Warden up and then I think Cass started reciting the Chant of Light or something."

Oh right, that was how.

Alistair shuddered and nearly dropped the tray from it. "Sweet Maker, I think I remember that." He came forward, almost tripped, but did at last manage to set his load down with only slightly sloshed ale to tell him of his missteps. The Grey Warden looked immensely pleased with himself as he reclaimed his chair. "I was only half-awake, mind you, and had gotten up to, ah, take care of some business and found what I _righteously_ thought was a giant spider carrying off our leader for a midnight snack! I didn't have my sword at the time and did the only thing I could think of, which just amounted to screaming and hitting the spider with a log from the fire. Burned my hands, too!"

Bull was already laughing so hard that he managed to snort the entire crown of his ale up his nose, which just lead him into a coughing fit that had Varric snatching both of his mugs to his side to save them from the giant qunari's antics. "You gotta be kidding! That's amazing! Free bondage without having to drag all of the leather around!"

"Free _what?"_ Alistair asked while Varric choked on his ale.

Maker if he was asking _that_ then— "Don't worry about it," Varric interrupted Bull, taking it on himself to preserve at least some of Alistair's innocence yet. Forever a thankless task on his part.

"It's not important. So how did that eventually turn out? Cass didn't want to listen anymore and I kinda got the impression Morrigan didn't want to go into details anyway, no doubt your influence." He gave his winning smile and adjusted his notebook so it would be safe from any spilled drinks, he wanted these writings to _survive_ the night for much later use, oh yes, _delicious_ use.

Alistair snorted and took a swig from his mug, leaving behind a small mustache of foam that he seemed to entirely unaware of. "Anyway, I come bravely charging at the foul spider that had caught our great leader unawares armed with only my charred log and gave the spider a might _whack_ right on its forehead! Or at least, I think it was. Do spiders have foreheads? Anyway it screamed and dropped him and by this time everyone else was waking up to join us because I had heroically raised the alarm, and then suddenly Morrigan is right in front of me shrieking like the witch she is and yelling—something, I don't really remember. All of her yelling blended together in my head over the years so I have no idea what precisely she said but I'm sure you can guess." He took a breath and another drink and Bull hid his smirk behind his own mug when the mustache stubbornly lingered.

 _Don't tell him,_ the Reaver's eyes pleaded at him.

Varric rolled his eyes a little, but complied. Not wanting to make the others suspicious he took a sip as well. The ale was marvelously good in Skyhold but he wanted to have a more sober head if he wanted to keep up with the stories flying back and forth down here _and_ with the argument currently going on above them that they were eavesdropping on. He was nothing, though, if not a performer. "What happened then?" he asked.

"Right," the Warden said in a flat, annoyed tone that spoke of an insult that the toll of years _still_ had not managed to erase. This was going to be good. "I had to actually stop Oghren from cutting our heads off because the dwarf in his whole drunkenness just decided since I was screaming whoever was nearby was an enemy—which I got _no_ thanks for by the way—and Morrigan tries to make it look like _I_ was the one acting crazy! Saying she was just getting some water when a 'half-naked, lyrium-addled barbarian' comes screeching out of the darkness with a flaming log like a Chasind doing some ritual dance. There was _no_ water she was getting, and yet people start looking at me like _I'm_ the lunatic!" His cheeks were getting redder in his indignation, offended pride always loosening men's tongues as quickly as the alcohol did. But, he started to grin. "However I spoke up and _my_ version of the story had evidence...since the Tabris was still tied up. With spider webs."

Bull started to roar with laughter, but Alistair's excited yell rang over it. "Not the best part though! When I hit Morrigan with the log it broke, and I didn't pay attention to where any of the pieces went but _apparently_ Morrigan had put her little creepy webs like, _everywhere_ for Maker knows what and I hope I _never_ know, and they all started to catch fire." Alistair chortled and drank. "I never knew just how flammable spider webbing was until then but Maker! They all went up like oiled rags! Then we were all running around trying to put the fire out before it burned everything down and someone had to get Darrian free before he got torched as well. And _that's_ the reason why we wouldn't let Morrigan and Darrian take the same watch anymore."

Varric could barely write, his own laughter getting the better of him as Alistair reached the conclusion of his tale but he had to _finish!_

"You're quite the storyteller yourself, Peaches," he remarked, deciding to give his poor hand a break if only for a moment and enjoy himself. Several fried potato sticks went into his mouth and he switched to his left to scribble the rest of Alistair's recital down. "So was she going to um, you know, in her spider form—?"

" _I don't know and I don't want to know!"_ Alistair shrieked, clapping his hands over his ears. "I have enough nightmares just over what I saw then! You think—"

"Oh cheer up, kid!" the Iron Bull said, giving Alistair a slap on the back that made all the breath wheeze out of his body. "I'll tell you one that'll lighten the scowl on your face! Anyway it was a few weeks ago, right after we fought that weird ass darkspawn at Haven, I was—"

"Hey, isn't Varric supposed to go next?" Alistair piped up, his voice somehow sounding much smaller in comparison yet it still managed to cut through Bull before the other could fully launch into his tale.

One that Varric had already heard eleven times by now, but the distraction would give him enough time to organize his notes and stuff his face with more potatoes before they could all disappear into the endless, gaping pit that was Iron Bull's stomach.

"You can go ahead, by all means," he said with a small hand wave that might have looked impressive if it wasn't filled with potato sticks. "I'm just as good of a listener as I am a talker."

"See? Just fine! Anyway we had beaten up that weird ass darkspawn and found Skyhold and I was coming back from the courtyard because it's too damn cold up here—"

"Maybe if you wore something other than a pair of pants you wouldn't feel so cold."

"—and I could hear some weird noises coming from the Boss's quarters. No one else was really in the great hall at the time so I thought to have a quick peek up there since he sounded kind of weird, like he was in pain or something. Don't look at me like that, I mean it!"

"Mhmm," Alistair muttered with a perfect arch of his eyebrow. Not even Fenris could compare to that one. "How in the _world_ do you confuse sounds of pain with pleasure?"

Bull _grinned._

"Hah! All the time when you're with me, actually." He quaffed again and the uneasy look on Alistair's face (the beginning of an idea coming to him, but an idea he dared not voice out loud in case it be true) made him laugh again. "Now as I was saying, I was checking up on Boss to make sure some assassin hadn't crawled in and he wasn't on the floor dying or anything, and oh man. What I saw." He chortled. "I take a quick peek up and there's Cass, naked as the day she was born but still holding her sword, _defransdim_ I bet she sleeps with _that_ too, and the Boss on his knees in front of her. Also naked. Important detail."

Alistair's face was starting to resemble a rhubarb more and more with each passing second. Despite this he cleared his throat and did quite a good job on trying to sound completely calm and composed as he asked.

"I'm sure they were, is this really that important to point out?"

The look Bull gave him in return was mightily amused. "I bet in your head you were imagining them with their clothes on."

"I was _not!"_

"Now Boss was on his knees—

— _and Bull stopped in shock, at first pure_ glee _filling him at the sight of catching Kaaras and Cassandra in the middle of a_ roleplay _because honestly what_ else _could they be doing, but the sight of Kaaras writhing made him freeze. The Inquisitor was deeply flushed, his hands behind his back although there was nothing binding them there, and he was panting heavily._

 _"L-Lady Seeker," he was moaning, his voice husky from his own passion. "Spare me, please! I am just a lonely apostate, I've never hurt anybody with my magic!"_

 _"Be quiet, mage," Cassandra ordered, but her giggle that she was fighting down was betraying her. "By order of the Divine all rogue mages are to be brought to the Circles before they can do any more harm to Thedas and her people, and I must see my work done!"_

 _Kaaras looked up at her, grinning and fluttering his eyes a tiny bit. "Perhaps we can help each other out then, Lady Seeker?"_

 _Cassandra pretended to act confused. "What do you mean by that?" she asked coyly, placing one hand on her hip. "Will you come nicely, then?"_

 _"I was thinking of something else, actually," Kaaras said, grinning and—_

"That's not what he said," Varric interrupted, leaning back in his chair with a victorious smirk on his face as both Alistair and Bull turned to look at him, the latter in a clear state of panic.

"What do you mean?" Alistair asked.

"You left out a little detail, remember what you told me?" Varric grinned at Bull.

"Aw come on Varric, let the kid have at least a _little_ bit of innocence—"

— _"Oh I'll come alright," Kaaras said naughtily, although Cassandra's expression clearly told him that she missed the innuendo. "Get it, Cass? Come?"_

"Oh sweet _Maker—"_

 _—Cassandra rolled her eyes. "Inquisitor, really," she muttered even though her cheeks were now dusted with a rosy pink glow. The Inquisitor shuddered again, his magic rippling around his body from the effect of the Seeker's abilities still holding him in place, although she could do nothing to hold down his great length, which was hard and curved against his thighs, ready for whatever was to come._

 _And this part was right about where you started laugh—_

Iron Bull's deafening laugh shook the table again and it was a miracle nothing fell as he slammed his head down into his arm, his free hand pounding the tabletop in his mirth. Alistair narrowly avoided one of the horns knocking him out cold and quickly scooted his chair closer to Varric.

"It was brilliant!" the qunari roared, his whole frame shaking in from the force of his laughter.

"She looked _so_ lost for just a moment and he was still down there just grinning and ah dammit, yeah. I couldn't help it I started laughing and oh boy."

"I'll go ahead and assume that our resident Seeker was in no way amused by your spying on their activities," Alistair remarked, stealing a potato stick for himself and washing it down with a mouthful of beer. "I've seen her, she's a piece of work."

"She is," Varric muttered into his mug, in his perfect stage whisper that was designed to be heard and yet not interrupted.

"Oh yeah, she was _mad,_ " Bull said with a low, almost fond chuckle. "Mostly 'cause she was embarrassed about getting caught like that. Of course the problem was the Boss was kind of out of commission thanks to Cass and her Seeker powers but I think he was laughing a little too, trying to play it off as cool but that just made Cass even more mad. And she was the one with the sword." He nodded at the expressions on their faces and leaned back, showing that rare theatrical side of himself that Varric always knew lurked underneath from being trained as a Ben-Hassarath. "Luckily I was still down in the stairs and there was a banister in the way so her blade went right through _that_ first, which gave me enough time to duck and start running for my life."

 _"Bull!" Cassandra's voice_ roared _after him like one of the very dragons she used to kill and_ parshaara _he should_ not _be making that comparison before this whole thing got even more embarrassing. He still had to be able to run after all._

 _He was already pounding down the stairs and was out the door again in no time, slamming it open as he burst out into the great hall again. This time, though, he could see the light of the torches reflecting off of Solas's head as the bald elf peeked irritably out from his own little hole of a room. Perfect!_

 _"And what in the world are you—hey!" the elf yelled as Bull sprint toward him and had only a few seconds to duck out of the way before the huge qunari rammed his way past, one of his horns clipping a nice chunk out of the wall as he did._

 _"Bull!" There was another yell behind him and he turned to look at Cassandra, framed in the door leading to the Inquisitor's room, her sword in hand. Still naked._

 _Solas cleared his throat._

 _"Um, Seeker..."_

 _He didn't need to say more, in a moment understanding flashed in Cassandra's eyes and her rage evaporated in an instant, replaced with pure mortification. She dropped her sword and fled, the door slamming shut behind her with the sound of a bolt going in echoing in the empty space._

 _"Wonder why she didn't just do that before," Bull muttered, earning himself a very puzzled yet very annoyed look from Solas._

Alistair was caught between his mirth and his horror, laughing into his beer while his horrified sympathy shone in his face. "Oh my goodness, that's terrible," he said even through his laughter. By this time he had completely forgotten about the potatoes which just allowed Varric to devour the rest of them before working on his beer.

"I can only imagine, I mean, she's a _Seeker—"  
_  
"I heard she didn't come out of the Inquisitor's room for days," Varric said, chuckling. "Too embarrassed. It took Kaaras saying that he was going to leave for The Exalted Plains and stop the whole Orlesian civil war without her to get her out. In five minutes she was meeting us by the stables and to be honest with the look on her face we were all too scared to say anything."

"She still hit me, though," Iron Bull grumbled. "Just walked up to me when I was training and punched me right in the gut!" He rubbed the spot, wincing at the memory. "I trained with a ton of other qunari before but she hits like a bronto! In the best way possible, I must say." He threw a glance at the ceiling, as if fearing that the women might have heard him.

Considering the argument brewing, though, it was very clear that the rest of the world could have been conquered by Corypheus and the two of them would not have noticed.

"If the only way you can get your man into bed with you is to do something shocking and unholy it only shows how terrible you are at actually having a relationship!" Cassandra's muffled voice slurred out her words through her own alcohol, but still clearly enough for them all to hear through the barrier of the ceiling.

"Says the insecure one!" Morrigan bit back just as sharply. "You only do not like my stories because you are ashamed and shy about yourself so you can never enjoy anything but boring, plain sex!"

"I am not!"

"Hah, if Wilds thinks that spider stuff is exciting then I got one for her." Varric decided now was finally time to speak up, and he knew the last story always made the greatest impression. He leaned back as far as he legs could take him in his chair and assumed his storytelling pose, one that immediately had Alistair and Bull looking at him. "I will say though, the spider one was pretty good. But back in Kirkwall I saw something I don't think any dwarf should ever see." He sipped, letting the pause overwhelm the both of them.

Of course, they were hooked right away. Worked every time.

"Really?" Bull said, doubt in his tone, yet intrigue. "Don't be all dramatic, tell us!"

"Well," Varric said, teasing the word on his lips, pretending to reminisce. "It was a cold, yet clear golden morning in Kirkwall. At least as golden as Kirkwall can get, with its sea fog and foundry smoke and Merchant's Guild starting fights with the Coterie over who stole what. I had to go Hawke's mansion because I needed to pick up a new rune for Bianca that he was supposed to make for me..."

 _"Hawke?" he called as he entered, hearing his own voice echo solemnly back to him. "Hey Chuckles, you up yet?"_

 _Nothing. Maker's balls. He had an appointment to keep with the Guild today and they had told him in less and less subtle tones that he was to not skip out again or else there would be consequences. And these types of meetings usually required a fully functional, geared up Bianca as a peacemaker. Grumbling, Varric made his way deeper inside, hoping that he could run into Bodahn and ask him for the rune instead since it was no doubt Sandal's work anyway._

 _Except nothing as well. Not even Leandra. Ancestors, did the Carta abduct them all in the middle of the night or something? There was going to be hell, and a lot of money, to pay if he was going to locate them all if true._

 _The beautiful, ancient walls of the Amell estate then rang with the deep, sensual echoes of a moan. Oh,_ oh _now this made a little more sense. Varric paused, torn, then he figured he still needed the rune and this would be a wonderful piece of blackmail later. He crept up the stairs, the richly plush carpet swallowing his footsteps easily. Foolish, none of the dwarven nobles had carpets in their mansions for precisely this reason. But, then again, none of them were Hawke so they needed the extra advantage over an assassin._

 _"Oh yesssyes Merill, M-Maker now I fully regret not staying in your camp l-long enough to become friends with everyone there," Hawke was panting, every heated word forced out like a blade._

 _Maker, was_ Merill _the one on top? No no, not his Daisy. Not—he had to see. He was at the top of the landing now and tiptoed closer to the slightly ajar door._

 _"What do you mean?" Merill's confused voice rang back to him. "We don't really do this among each other, just the ah, Keepers. To symbolize our bonds with nature."_

 _"Hah—bonds—nature—" Hawke chuckled, the meaning of his words lost on an increasingly horrified Varric. "D-Did your Keeper do this to you then?"_

 _"I—!" Merill's voice lifted into a squeak. "T-That's a very inappropriate question to ask, isn't it!"_

 _"So she did?"_

 _"No!" Merill was quiet for a moment before she went on, her tone far more serious than it was seconds before. "You are interrupting. Talking, especially this kind, is not very tolerated during the ritual."_

 _"Forgi—mmmmph!"_

 _He heard the strangest..._ wettest _sound? Varric was finally close enough to peek into the room and he swore his jaw was about to fall_ off.

 _Merill stood like some sort of terrible, vengeful goddess of nature in the middle of the room, clad in a green cloak and_ only _that, while the staff in her hand glowed with magic. Hawke was adorned with even less, which was suffice to say nothing at all. But that was not what drew his attention to be honest, it was what was holding Hawke in place, suspended in the air. Vines, dozens of them, all of them wrapped around Hawke's body, supporting him, while writhing across the surface of his skin and another one had shoved into his mouth, effectively gagging him and oh no no he wasn't going to look down he was_ not _going to look down—_

 _"Oh my god."_

 _Merill whipped around in shock, her face going white, and Hawke coughed as the vine popped out of his mouth and Varric told his legs to go, that they needed to be running out of the house right about now, but they refused to move._

 _Everything was silent for a moment._

 _It felt like a year._

 _"H-Hey Varric," Hawke managed to croak out with a sheepish smile and a wave. As if Varris had only walked in on him doing something completely mundane, like eating breakfast naked or something like that. "Um, just a bad case of morning wood?"_

 _Varris thudded his head into the door. Maker._

He felt the stares on him, and his shoulder instinctively hunched up.

"What?" he said, defensive. Those weren't the _best_ memories to dredge up, those were seared into his brain.

"You're lying," Iron Bull said flatly, with all the conviction of one who knows they are telling the truth and no amount of talking would convince them.

Varric groaned and threw up his hands. "Why does everyone say that whenever I'm telling the truth?!"


	5. Sensual Serenades

"Has anyone seen the Bull and Alistair?" Kaaras asked as he stepped into the tavern. His eyes were already fixed upon the spot where Iron Bull usually sat, but for once his seat was vacant. It left a noticeable void in the space of the tavern, almost akin to someone having suddenly moved the furniture.

Varric winced a little and glanced around, hoping someone else would speak up for once, but seeing the general response of the crowd were either confused looks or heads shaking, he knew it was to be his burden once again.

"They haven't been here since Seeker and Witch came through here a few nights back," he said, steeling himself for the gaze that landed on him. "The last I saw of them were their backsides hauling out the other door before Witch could set them on fire."

The Inquisitor sighed, his expression resigned, as if he somehow knew that would be the answer yet wishing that it would not be.

"I see," was all he said as he blew out a breath and looked at the ceiling for a moment. "Thanks Varric. By the way Josephine needed you for something, so you should drop by her as soon as you are able."

"An excuse to have a lovely conversation with Ruffles? No need to tell me twice!" Varric replied as Kaaras walked back out, looking unusually pensive as he made his ambling way back to the main hall of Skyhold.

The dwarf winced at the sight. Cassandra was that bad, wasn't she? He actually felt a little sorry for her, despite all the times she had snapped at him and manhandled him and all other sorts of things that handsome dwarves like himself were not meant to suffer. He was a storyteller, but no one deserved to have stories like that spread around. Of course the perpetrator was not _him_ (for once) but to be honest he had no idea who it had been. Maybe Bull, maybe Peaches, or maybe someone had just overheard their conversation? They hadn't been doing a great job of keeping quiet, that he was well aware of.

Still, that hadn't stopped Cassandra from dangling him out of one of the tower windows, threatening to see if his flapping tongue would be big enough to make him _fly_ if he didn't confess to his crime right that second. She had been genuine that time, Varric knew it, but he had been unsure—and still unsure—if she wouldn't have just thrown him out anyway because he had _never_ seen her that angry before, even when she learned that he had lied about knowing where Hawke was. It hadn't helped that Morrigan had been goading her on the whole time.  
Or maybe it did because Cassandra still hated her and would simply not do something Morrigan wanted her to do for pure spite. It was hard to tell with those two.

Either way, she didn't deserve the embarrassment she got over all of Skyhold learning about what she and the Inquisitor were doing in their bedroom. Maker he was feeling...guilty, for once in his life. Sighing, he looked out the window a little at Kaaras's retreating figure. He certainly had a lot of work cut out for him.

Deep down in the dark, rarely-seen depths of Skyhold, a tony drop of water plopped somewhere, echoing down the stony halls forlornly until its dozens of echos faded into nothing. Only the crackling of torchlight served as a counterpoint, and once in a while some faceless worker would come downstairs to check to make sure the fires were still burning before going back up and then the silence would descend once more.

Mostly silent, anyway. Once in a while there was a rattle, a whisper, a shush, and then a few hours after noon had passed an almighty sneeze followed by a small shriek that was like a cannon going off.

"What the hell was that! Are you trying to get us killed?!" Bull hissed, his hand slapping over his racing heart in an attempt to calm it down, unsuccessfully. "I— _Maker_ who the hell sneezes that loud?"

"I—I can't help it," Alistair groaned, his voice muffled by his sinuses. "I told you I—ugh, that hay makes me sneeze." He sniffled a little, then his breath hitched. "N-No not again!" he clapped his hands over his mouth and nose, holding the next sneeze in.

There was the sound of footsteps, and the two warriors plastered themselves against the darkest corner of their cell. The dungeons had been their eventual hiding place of choice, on Iron Bull observation that neither Cassandra nor Morrigan would ever think to look down there for them. To give him credit, his theory had been proven right so far, as two days had passed without their location being discovered yet, even with them occasionally sneaking out to grab food from the kitchen and stretch their legs and anything else they needed to quickly do before running back and avoiding detection.

The steps grew louder, loud enough for someone to have come down by now, but they couldn't hear anything after the steps paused. Someone was no doubt listening for another noise. Iron Bull dug his fingers into Alistair's shoulder, the only bit of communication they needed for a _Be quiet for the love of the Maker_ to be heard and acknowledged. Alistair nodded, his head barely moving.

A long, endless minute dragged on, then another, then the steps turned back and retreated upstairs. They both sighed in relief, slumping against the wall.

"When do you think they'll stop looking?" Alistair whispered.

"We just need to wait for Boss to go on another mission of some sort," Bull muttered back. "They'll be so caught up in what they're running around and doing that they'll pretty much forget about the whole thing, and with them gone for so long Skyhold won't really pay that much attention to the whole mess and it'll just fade away."

"Nice one," the Grey Warden replied. "I don't know if Morrigan will, though. It's not like she offered to ever go with the Inquisitor on his missions...and she's petty, and vengeful. She'll turn us into toads just because she doesn't want us getting off the hook for anything, even if she doesn't care about it anymore."

A raven was tapping on the window most annoyingly. Morrigan had half a mind to blast it away with a gale of ice, an irrationally angry response coming from her but if Leliana couldn't teach her ridiculous birds how to find their mistress _properly_ then that was entirely her problem, wasn't it? She glared at the bird, and she could almost swear that it was glaring right back at her, insolently even, and she was forming a layer of frost around her hand already before she noticed the little tube attached to the raven's leg with a piece of string. It was of dark red wood, yet despite lacking any sort of distinguishing features she could have recognized it anywhere and she nearly knocked the bird off its perch in her haste to open the window.

"Come here this instant!" she snapped and the raven flew in, although probably more out of its desire to deliver its message rather than through anything she said. It held out its leg patiently, looking very annoying for a bird.

"I've eaten your kind before, wretch," she growled at it as she worked to untie the tube. "Believe me, you taste most plump and delightful to the tongue of a cat." There, _now_ it looked a little nervous, and once it was freed from its burden it flapped to try and get away. Morrigan let it go, but not before flinging a playful wisp of fire at it, singing the edges of its feathers and making it squawk before it was out of sight and reach.

Smirking to herself, she turned back to her prize and gazed upon it for a moment, her features growing softer. It had been a long while since Tabris had written her a message, not so long that she had been worried for his safety but definitely long enough that any sort of angry response she had to whatever was written in his (no doubt apologetic) letter would be entirely justified on her part. She stroked the wood a little before popping the lid from the tube and sliding out the rolled pieces of parchment sealed inside. More than one sheet this time, that was a good start. She untied the scrolls and opened the first one, her eyes scanning the page.

 _My dearest,_ it began, _my most lovely, my vicious, my beloved little apostate, how do you fare? I am doing quite well for myself, thank you for asking, except for missing you, of course. Just the other day I was lying awake, thinking about you, and I remembered that wonderful time we spent in the Brecilian Forest when we were hunting down Witherfang. Remember when—_

Oh _oh,_ this was not a social call int he slightest, and that ridiculous introduction was a flimsy excuse plastered over the rest of what was written on the paper, as if to make the following words softer on their impact. Except it didn't, and Darrian must have been missing her _terribly_ if his choice of words was anything to go by. She could feel the heat rising in her cheeks and she was quite thankful at that moment that she was alone, and she quickly rushed over to the door to lock it to make sure things would _stay_ that way while she enjoyed her Warden's letter.

Casting suspicious glances about the room, particularly the window, she yanked the curtains over it just in case anyone might try to peek inside. Even though she was dwelling in one of the upper floors so if someone wanted to look through her window they would have to sprout wings and fly, but strangers things had happened in her life. Giggling a little, a sound she would immediately deny making, she retreated to one of the darker, safer corners of the room and read on, gasping in delight at what she saw.

"Really Darrian," she murmured to herself, but the way her voice purred out the words belied her tone completely. "Do you now?" she said with a smirk as she reached the second page. "Well, too bad you _aren't_ here to see this, my love." Her fingers teased the hem of her top before slowly pushing under it, making her way up to one of her breasts while her breathing quickened.

Usually she was impatient, simply needing pleasure and wanting to get it done as quickly as possible, but Darrian had always seen this and then forced himself to go slow on her, at least when he had the self-control to do so. Morrigan hated him for it, but also loved him for it. It was such a uniquely _Darrian_ way of touching her, one that belonged solely to him and called to her mind memories of his touch when she felt it.

She hissed through her teeth as her fingers found her nipple and tugged on it, the sudden sensation sending a thrill down her spine. Her eyes wanted to flutter closed, but she resolutely held them open as she continued to read the letter, the gold depths hazy with lust.

"You want to see this, Warden?" she whispered, smirking as she rolled her nipple in her fingers and then squeezed her breast, tugging on it until it was held straight out from her chest before she released it. "Well if you weren't taking _so_ long chasing your tail and actually came back you _would_ see this for yourself." Of course she jested, knowing Darrian was on an extremely important mission, but that did not stop her annoyance in any way. "Imagine _all_ of the things you're missing right now," she whispered, glancing down at the ring she held on one of her fingers. The one she had contemplated destroying several times, especially after Darrian had used it to follow her to the eluvian, but he kept proving to her again and again how silly of an idea it would be. They were connected through it, perhaps she should send him some dreams later? He would be none the wiser.

Dreams of _this,_ oh yes.

"You do miss touching me, I know you do," she chuckled as she read that particular line right from the letter. "All alone in that wilderness, with nothing but your own hands to keep you company. You did make a mistake when parting from me, my love." She set down the letter and ran her hands along her body instead, still reading to the last page as her hand occupied itself with her other breast, pulling her nipples until her breasts were stiff peaks before releasing them again. She bit her lip with every movement, her body wiggling a little as she tried to make herself sit still.

But not even she could keep herself so still for long. It was always Darrian's field of expertise, and she was frustrated at how easily she cracked under the strain of it, yet a part of her also couldn't bring herself to care. She wanted it so what was the point of being so lethargic when the one man who could make her scream in his agonizingly slow pleasures wasn't even here? She undid her skirt hastily, loosening it so she could slide her hand inside easier, too impatient to take it off completely, and still a little paranoid. This wasn't her room after all.

She was wet, almost unbelievably so and she knew Darrian would tease her about it if he knew, especially since he wasn't even _here_ at the moment. She huffed out an annoyed breath at his phantom voice in her mind, then her hips jerked as she started to stroke herself. Morrigan could feel her heated, swollen flesh between her fingers, feel her hair sliding between her fingers as she moved, and when she reached the end of her letter she closed her eyes and finally let her imagination run free, seeing Darrian's hand on her instead.

A moan left Morrigan's mouth before she could stop it, and she bit down hard on her lip before another one could be let free. With her other hand she kept playing with her breast, her movements becoming more harsh in her passion, squeezing her flesh hard enough to watch it press between her fingers as if eager to escape her grasp. It was intense, the feeling raw and hard just as she usually liked it, and she pressed harder against her clit in response. Fire raced up her veins, coiling in her gut and Morrigan writhed in her seat, her breaths dragging from her as she was held in the grip of her passion, utterly powerless against it.

Her hips were dancing now, in a constant rhythm against her skillfull fingers which glowed with the slight touch of magic, sending more fire across her nerves in an inferno that had her teeth gritting to stop any noise she might make. But her breathing was faster now, erratic, her hand caught in a mindless loop of tugging her nipple, pinching and rolling, then moving to the other one until they were both red and the slightest touch made her body twitch in pleasure. It was so much, damn Darrian and his words, damn him for being so perfect and clever and—

Another hiss left Morrigan's mouth, followed by a soft cry as she came, her hips jerking erratically into her touch as she rode out the shocks of her climax. She was left lying boneless in the chair, panting as she let the fire slowly leave her, sated but not subdued. Morrigan took a deep breath, a smile coming across her lips as she basked in the feeling, and her eyes wandered to the letter once more before she reached out to take the papers and rolled them up once more, tucking them out of sight in her pocket.

That was wonderful, but not enough. Not near enough considering how long Darrian had been gone. She stood up, adjusting her clothes back to their proper places, and made her way to the door. She had to get back to her room...or perhaps find Cassandra and show her how a woman who loves sex _really_ gets some good pleasure.

"Cass, I have something I want to show you," Kaaras spoke into the keyhole of the door, trying not speak _too_ loudly in case someone might hear (there were _enough_ eavesdroppers in this fortress already) but enough for Cassandra to actually understand what he was saying.  
He heard the sound of a bed rustling, and Cassandra's muffled, monotonous voice filtered through to him.

"What is it?"

The qunari sighed and counted a little in his head, a calming exercise he had used while learning to master his magic. He was going to _kill_ Alistair and Bull when he found them.

"I'm afraid it's nothing that can be explained in such short, simple words," he said, hoping his voice sounded alluring and teasing enough that it would pique her curiosity. "I'm afraid you'll have to just come out and see."

A soft sound...a sigh perhaps?

"Is anyone else out there with you?" Cassandra demanded, her voice the slightest bit louder, as if her intrigue had breathed more life into her words. Whatever the case Kaaras was more than happy to be hearing it.

"No one, I swear it. It's just us out here, my dearest," he said, his excitement all too easy to hear, knowing that he had won. "And if I do see anyone I'll throw a bit of lightning their way to let them know that they aren't welcome."

Cassandra's voice chuckled and it was the sweetest sound in the world.

"No, don't do that," she responded, and he could hear the creak and shift of her bed and the sound of her walking across the room. The door handle turned and Kaaras straightened up in just enough time to see Cassandra greeting him with tired, but gentle eyes. "Yes, Inquisitor?" she asked.

Kaaras put his finger to his lips, smiling and taking her hand. Wordlessly he led her back, watching her follow him until he was sure she would keep up before turning around to lead the way. They passed across the halls of Skyhold, their own footsteps the only noise to accompany them, and it truly did seem as if there wasn't a soul in sight. Kaaras made sure of that when he gave Leliana a few very specific instructions earlier, ones she was all too eager to follow if the grin on her lips told him anything.

The walk to his room was therefore, blessedly empty of mischief. Cassandra's face was only more questioning, her earlier embarrassment and shyness fading away in the wake of her aroused curiosity. As they were about to go up the steps, though, Kaaras suddenly snuck behind her and clasped his hands over her eyes. "Let's go!" he said, nudging her forward.  
"Kaaras, really!" she laughed, her foot feeling its way forward. "How am I supposed to walk up stairs when I can't see where I'm going?"

"I won't let you fall," he promised. "Now come on, it's not that far."

She sighed, but obeyed, her steps slow and careful. She always did everything so carefully that Kaaras was sure he wasn't even needed in the first place, as Cassandra would likely never fall. As they ascended he began whispering into her ear:

" _I heard a whisper of you the other night—  
I think,Among the murmur your name in worship,When you pass radiance makes them open,More blissfully, more beautifully,Than the Maker's own sun.I wish to drink it from you,To bathe my lips upon your skin,As your greatest devotee,To worship you among all the great works of beauty in the world."_

At the end he opened his hands, and the gasp of delight he heard afterwards made everything, all of the embarrassment, all of the running around he had been doing, fade away like a bad dream.

"Kaaras!" Cassandra whispered, whirling around and kissing him immediately, her touch all at once wild and thankful and so full of joy that he couldn't help but pick her up and spin her around a little, listening to her giggle like a maiden. "What is all of this? How did you get it?"  
He winked at her.

"I'm the Inquisitor, I have connections," he said, gesturing to the table in front of them. The room had been draped in elaborate red and gold colors, muted in the soft light from the dozens of candles scattered about, the greatest concentration being on the table, where a dinner had been laid out for the two of them. A trail of rose petals led from the top of the stairs all the way to the table, where even more had been tossed across the pristine white tablecloth to decorate it in splashes of red.

"You mean you have Josephine," Cassandra sighed dreamily, her eyes going soft as she drank in the sight longer and longer. "Thank you so much Kaaras, really. I, I don't even have any words to say..." And that seemed to annoy her, if only a little.

"She was most happy to help, you know she loves planning little things like this." Kaaras took her arm and led her gently to the table, pulling out her chair for her and waiting for her to seat herself before he took his own spot. "Recognize everything you see here? I know you haven't been to Nevarra in forever but—"

"With all the dinners I sat at with my uncle, I know everything here." She sniffed the air gently.  
"That's real dragonling, isn't it? The honeyed quail is easy to get but did you actually barter fresh dragonling meat—"

"Everything for you, love," Kaaras said, smiling at her as he worked to uncork their wine. "How do you like it?"

Cassandra smiled back at him, her dark eyes deep and gentle, and held out her wine glass for him.

"No one recites Filidantus like you do. I would listen to it forever if I could." Was all she said. It was all she needed to say.

The cork came out with a pop and he began pouring, feeling like he had just fought off a dozen dragons with his bare hands.

"I will," he promised, "after I dine on your radiance." Her anticipatory chuckle pulled at his gut, but he told himself to at least get through dinner first.

Somewhere, deep down in the fortress, he thought he heard two voices screaming. He ignored them.


	6. Drunken Deals

He swore he would never touch alcohol again.

Varric knew about two minutes into that promise that he had a higher chance of sprouting wings and flying than actually falling through with it, so he revised it. He would drink only three drinks any time he ever decided to have alcohol and that was it, his limit. He sat smugly on that promise for ten minutes, then—like any good book—decided it needed another revision. Every Tuesday he would allow himself to drink whatever he wanted and as much of it as he wanted, then the rest of the week he would adhere to the three drinks rule.

That sounded pretty good at first. But no matter how hard he tried he still sat, quill hovered over his parchment, while the promise still floated around in his head. No matter how hard he tried to shove it away, telling himself the matter was _solved_ thank you, it wouldn't leave him. Finally, with a groan of defeat, he decided that it needed a small revision again.

Perhaps some wine this time while he thought. Perhaps the Halamshiral White would give him some insight into the issue.

He hated that he had to think of this at _all,_ actually, but it had been alcohol that started this whole mess, the one where he had been drunk with Bull and Alistair, and also the resulting time with Cassandra. That one he hadn't been expecting...

It had been about a week after the incident, and he had taken great care to avoid getting too far off the ground, or near any windows for that matter. Just in case Seeker decided to take it into her head that she hadn't punished him enough the first time she chased him down. It wasn't too unlike her; after all she tracked him down again _years_ after he told her the story of Hawke just to drag him to Haven so he could tell it _all over again._ Cassandra had no qualms whatsoever in monotonously repeating appointed tasks given to her over and over to the point where Varric wasn't even sure she thought there was a problem in it at all. And that was related to things she had been _assigned_ to do. Things she did on her own free will, well...

Which was why when he saw her barging through the door to the grand hall, her stride long and purposeful, her path headed very clearly right for his desk and her eyes even locked upon him, he did his best to try and slam his book shut and scoop all of his papers into his arms and run away as quickly as possible.

"Wait!" Cassandra's voice called to him, sounding far less angry than he expected her to. Normally he might have thought this would be some sort of trap, but Cassandra had the guile of the rock so he had to give her _some_ benefit of the doubt.

Varric paused, hand frozen on the doorknob that he had already half turned, and wondered if by his hesitation he had doomed himself. He craned his head to look over his shoulder at Cassandra's approach. He had a sliver of time left before Cassandra was too close, and if anything this door led to Chuckles's sanctuary so he was sure the elf would help him out if she did try to throttle him, so he called out, "Yes?"

The relief on Cassandra's face told him that he had made a good move. She closed the distance between them in a few seconds and now stood in front of him, looking like she was about to start wringing her hands. Even though she was a human, and a woman, nothing even close to the qunari in terms of height, there was something about Cassandra that made Varric feel as if she was _towering_ over him in a way that Kaaras and Bull never managed to replicate. "Varric," she began hesitantly, as oblivious as ever to the effect she was having on the dwarf, it seemed. "I—" she paused, then cleared her throat, a blush coming to her cheeks. "This isn't easy for me..."

"Oh?" Varric replied, his voice curling in curiosity. "Now this I have to see, Seeker."

The glare he got did not even have a third of the usual bite Cassandra could conjure up, but it made Varric's spine stiffen nonetheless. However, much to his shock, he watched Cassandra stamp her annoyance with him down and her face smoothed again. "I was thinking these past few days," she said in a way that told Varric that she had been preparing this speech beforehand, and a part of him wanted dearly to interrupt and throw her off, but then, "and I wanted to say that I'm sorry."

 _That_ sent his nefarious plot to say something random crashing right into the proverbial wall. "What?" he blurted out unthinkingly, then mentally kicked himself for being such a stupid _oaf_ with his words. Some writer he was. "What are you apologizing to me for?" he asked, watching Cassandra's face start to fall. Oh Maker he had done something, hadn't he? Something good or bad or whatever but apparently it had totally slipped by his notice but not Cassandra's and it had been very important to _her._

She looked at him as if he had lost his mind. Maybe he had. Anything seemed to be possible since the Inquisitor showed up. "For my horrible treatment of you the other day!" she clarified, as if it should have been obvious. "With the, ah, window."

Oooh _that?!_ Varric's years of acting and making up bullshit stories kept his face from contorting out of control, but he did feel his expression slip into one of surprise before he could contain himself. "Oh," he said, fumbling for words as he tried to find some sort of appropriate reaction to that, especially since this was the first apology Cassandra ever deigned to give him for _anything_ she had done to him _. "_ It's, ah, okay Cassandra, I had already forgotten about it. Thank you, though! The thought is real sweet." That was bad, that was _really_ bad but good graces of Andraste how was he supposed to react? What was the ideal thing to say to someone who nearly threw you out of a window?

With every word he said Cassandra seemed to be getting more and more puzzled, and he knew whatever scenario she had imagined playing out in her head, this one wasn't fitting it in the slightest. "What are you talking about, Varric? How could you have forgotten about it?"

"Well I didn't literally forget it," Varric defended himself, even if that sounded pathetically weak and flimsy. Yes Varric, dig your grave deeper like a duster, that was the way to do it. "It was just another one of those times when you get mad at me for something I've done or been a part of and threaten me with all sorts of bodily harm. I've gotten used to them by now."

Cassandra's stricken expression told him that he had said precisely the wrong thing, in every conceivable way. "You're _used_ to it?!" she said. "I don't—I don't yell at you that much, do I?"

There was no way to answer that question that would make her happy. "Well you do have quite a temper at times," the dwarf answered delicately. "While some of Skyhold has bets on how long it'll be before you finally snap and kill me, and equally large portion is convinced that you and I are secret lovers and have a lot of hate sex after each argument of ours."

His stab at humor had its desired effect, and Varric was taking a great delight in the full range of expressions he was seeing Cassandra's face go through today. The disgust was a far more familiar countenance from her and Varric fancied that he managed to steer the conversation into a far more sane line of progression. "Lovers? How dare—!" she sputtered. "How can they not know about the Inquisitor and I? Are they blind?"

"Oh they know alright," Varric said with a chuckle, then at the blistering fury that caused he quickly went on, "but it's not important. What _is_ important is: I accept your apology. And thank you."

Cassandra looked at him for a long moment, calculating. It turned out the Maker was not done surprising him today, because the next words out of her mouth seemed to be specifically designed to throw him off in the wildest way possible. "You know what, Varric? Let me buy you a drink and make it up to you. We never really talked together as friends, have we? Can I have your advice on a few things?"

Oh what fresh hell was this? Varric tensed, feeling the claws of the trap snapping around him. Not an intentional trap, of course, guile of a rock and all of that, but with her utterly witless and _sincere_ offerVarric found himself snared with no real way out. Maker not even Isabela had ever managed to do that. On one hand he could say yes but then have to be subjected to whatever the world drunk Cassandra was like (he had paid enough attention to her drinking with Morrigan to learn two things: that Cassandra could not hold her alcohol to save her life and she was _wild_ when drunk and not in the fun way.) Or he could reject the offer and not only stomp over Cassandra's heartfelt feelings and ruin any reconciliation between them forever, but also just be a dick.

Varric was not a dick. Not that much of one, anyway.

He wasn't even going to keep that promise about the alcohol, anyway, so what was the harm?

"I'd really like that, Seeker," he said with a smile. "Lead the way."

—

Oh goodness he really had no idea what he had been getting himself into, didn't he?

Varric stoically steeled himself against the weight pressing into his shoulder, which was much harder than it sounded because _apparently_ Cassandra could imitate the pressure of an entire mountainside when the mood struck her. It was as if every drink she imbibed doubled her weight until even she was crumbling under it. Cassandra herself seemed entirely unaware of this, waving her mug a little as she spoke, swinging between her usual regal Right Hand of the Divine self and the anxious lover that she was.

"How do you do it, Varric? You've never even mentioned having a lover, how can you write such beautiful scenes of lovemaking in your books like an expert? Tell me, have you had so many women that the art just comes to you without thinking?"

"I'd like to say I'm just a natural," Varric dodged smoothly, adjusting his position so Cassandra's arm was forced to sling across the armrest of her chair where it _belonged_ instead of his shoulder. He thanked his dwarf genes once more for their Stone-blessed sturdiness. "Besides it all depends on the type of woman, Cassandra. Well, not in your case, but you know what I mean. There is no one perfect way to talk to someone to make them fall into your bed like that, to have the most perfect and amazing sex of your life every single time. That's why my books are _fiction,_ sweetie."

"But there's still a _good_ way to talk to people!" Cassandra protested, her words slurring. Honestly her near hero-worship of how he wrote his terrible romance novels was one of the most flattering things he had ever heard a fan of his say. The problem was he couldn't even include it in his eventual novel about the Inquisition because no one would ever believe him. "There's a way to sssay ssssomething and it's just, _good_ and people like you and—"

"That's called being charming, Seeker, and trust me, everyone has their own special charm." He offered her a smile. "Of course there are some who are more charming that others, like Hawke, but even Corypheus managed to get a huge crowd of followers and you've seen what he looks like. It's all in the approach."

"I hope for their sssakes that he does not _sleep_ with them, though," Cassandra added with a shudder. "It's _different_ with me. How am I supposed to tell Kaaras that I love him being a mage and I want his staff to work some magic inside of me? How do you approach that?"

Varric nearly _died_ right then and there because the beer he inhaled just about drowned him. "I—" he coughed, feeling Cassandra slap his back with all the force of an avalanche and he winced, hoping that she didn't jerk his spine out of alignment. "Doesn't he already put his, ah, staff inside of you?" he asked as delicately as he was able, amazed that he was even able to say something like that without fearing that she would rip his head off his shoulders.

"Varric, have you _seen_ that thing? The tip of it is huge! And I'm sure there's dirt and dried blood and demonic ichor and _who knows_ what else all over it from whenever he beat something to death last with it."

Oh, oh sweet blessed Maker she meant _that_ staff. Leave it up to Cassandra to not understand the innuendo in the slightest, even Sebastian would have blushed to his hairline at those words. On the other hand though, _Maker._ Varric was out of words at this point, he had literally no idea how to react to this piece of information that Cassandra had just ungracefully shoved into his lap and this was _definitely_ going to go into the novel somewhere even if he had to imply it or be so subtle that no one else would get it but it was _going in._

"What should I do, Varric? I love him so much and I'd let him do _so_ many things to me, he always lets me do everything even though by all means he shouldn't because I'm from the Chantry and he's a mage and that is one of the worst power dynamics possible and—" she took a swig of her ale and seemed nearly on the verge of tears. "—And how to I let go of my nervousness about this?"

Damn it. Damn it. "Uh—" no do not make a joke Varric you can't get out of every serious situation with a joke you are _not_ Hawke "—have you ever talked to him about it? Kaaras is one of the most understanding people I've ever seen in my life, and he's obviously crazy about you. You should talk to him about what you like in bed, and even if he doesn't agree with it he'll know that you trusted him enough to tell him."

"It's not about _trust,"_ Cassandra whined, "it's because it's _embarrassing."_

Varric reached up to pat her shoulder. "Seeker, if he loves you even half as much as I know he does, he won't think so, and won't care. Tell you what," he grinned, an idea hatching in his mind, "let's get you a little more sober and you can go tell him, okay?"

She regarded him for a moment, analyzing, then tilted her head back and drained the rest of her ale. "Fine," she said, clunking the mug down. "I will. And you're coming with me."

His heart froze. Oh no, bad idea, this was _not_ how this was supposed to go.

Maybe he wouldn't include this after all.

—

"You!" Alistair heard a half second before his door slammed open with all the force of an angry golem punching it down. He screamed (a very manly scream, mind you) and whirled around to see Morrigan standing in the threshold of his room, her eyes blazing and snow falling from her fingertips. She straightened herself up, her lips curling into a snarl. "You!" she repeated, jabbing a finger in his direction.

Well, since he was about to be turned into a toad at any second, Alistair decided to use his lips one more time to speak before he lost the ability forever. "Me?" he said, laying a hand on his chest, ignoring his thundering heart. "Yes, me."

"For once in your life Alistair, stop acting like a brain-dead puppy," Morrigan snorted, wobbling a little before she began making her stumbling way toward him.

Then it clicked in Alistair's head finally. Her strangely glazed eyes, her speech, her walk, oh Andraste's mercy Morrigan was _drunk._ He barely had time to enjoy the absolute beauty of a gift that had decided to land in his lap when Morrigan was right in front of him, poking her finger into his chest. "Did you come all the way up here just to yell at me? I'm touched, really."

"Shut up," Morrigan snapped, her golden eyes locked on his. "How do you do it?"

"Do what?" Alistair asked, unable to stop his smirk. Messing with Morrigan when she was drunk and obviously in a temper was a terrible, terrible idea, but he absolutely couldn't help it because it was so _fun._ "Get my hair this way? Trust me, that's a secret I'm taking to the grave, Morrigan."

An annoyed groan spilled from her lips and he ducked out of the way of her clumsy slap. "You stupid _oaf!"_ she yelled, nearly falling over and Alistair wanted to let her fall but it was his own natural instincts that made him catch her. She nearly collapsed in his arms and Alistair let out a grunt of surprise as he was forced to support her whole weight. Goodness what had she been eating when she was growing up, rocks? "Just tell me how you do it, how you look at a woman and want to be romantic to them."

This wasn't Morrigan. Corypheus had made a very clever clone and planted her in Skyhold, it was all clear now. "Well when she's pretty and special most men just try to be romantic when they want to woo her," Alistair replied, trying his best not to chuckle.

" _I'm pretty!"_ Morrigan exploded, jerking out of his arms with all the fury of a bucking stallion and Alistair actually found himself shoved back a little. " _I'm special!"_

Oh no oh no she was talking about _herself_ Alistair would have found this absolutely, utterly hilarious except he was about to become a frog and he wouldn't even get the time to enjoy it. He let his Templar powers leap to his fingers, ready to defend himself if need be, but Morrigan had thrown herself so hard that she was too busy trying not to fall over. He watched her grab the table to steady herself and decided that any attempt at saving himself was better than none. "Of course you are! You're the most special mage I've ever seen! And if your mother used to be such a beauty I suppose it's only natural you would be too. I bet you look just like she did...a very, very long time ago, anyway."

Morrigan groaned. "Like _that._ How do you do it? What makes you want to say that to a woman? Why don't I ever hear that when I'm pretty?"

This was without a doubt the weirdest conversation he had in his life. Alistair blinked and decided to just roll with it. "Well in your case, you hate such things. Remember, you were constantly putting down things like love and affection when we traveled with Darrian? You don't make yourself out to be the most receptive person to such treatment, Morrigan." No one was ever going to believe him. Not even Leliana and she always knew when he was lying.

A miserable expression crossed Morrigan's face, so rare that at first Alistair didn't even know what he was seeing at first. "Darrian used to be like that, when we were first...together," she said, a sigh escaping her. "He still _is_ but lately it's been...rare. And I'm going to make him be romantic with me without begging for it and you are going to tell me how!"

"And what makes you think I know how?" Alistair questioned, honestly curious.

A scoff was his answer. "You don't know any other way," Morrigan replied to him. "There's not a single rough bone in your whole body, you couldn't be domineering even if someone ordered it. Your spine is made of oatmeal."

"At least I'm tasty and squishy, then!" Alistair quipped, earning himself another groan from Morrigan. As volatile as she was, she was also much more mellow and he decided to take advantage of the opportunity as much as he could. "If you don't want to outright tell him, then perhaps drop little hints? Or act sweeter? I mean in my experience when I'm around a woman who's all sweet and innocent and ladylike I don't want to act, uhh, _crude_ to her."

"Darrian and I are not _crude!"_

"For the love of the Maker you know what I mean!" Alistair finally lost his temper and snapped back. He barely registered Morrigan's shocked expression before he barreled on. "Stop being so aggressive all the time! That's what I'm talking about!"

Morrigan glared at him, crossing her arms, and then she looked around and seated herself without even asking him if she could. "You'll help me with it," she growled. "And you won't tell _anybody_ or I swear I will turn your hair into worms!"

"My lips are sealed," Alistair chuckled. Alright first Leliana, along with wine and apology for missing their dinner, then Varric, then Darrian because Morrigan was hopeless (and make him swear not to tell Morrigan), then Zevran, then...


	7. Beautiful Bonds

Well that went much better than he expected.

"I, um," Varric said, his voice hardly louder than a murmur as he watched the scene unfolding in front of him. "I guess my work here is finished and I'll just...go now, yes." He took an exaggerated step back, then looked to see if they had noticed.

Not a thing. Kaaras and Cassandra seemed to have forgotten his existence entirely. To be honest, though, it wasn't like he expected anything less. When two people were holding each other like _that,_ locked in a kiss _that_ passionate, then doing anything other than forgetting about the rest of the world around them would have just been an insult.

"I hope you two have a good one," Varric added with a chuckle as he began slowly making his way to the stairs, trying to hurry himself but also lingering to make sure he saw as many details as possible for adding into his book later. It was a delicate game he was playing, he of course wanted to get all the information he could but for all his long list of flaws, being a voyeur was not one of them so he had to leave before he saw _too much._ Not to mention it would be just his luck or him to linger for too long and then all of a sudden Kaaras and Cassandra would remember about him.

"I can't believe I've been so foolish this whole time," he heard Cassandra whispering between their kisses, hardly noticeable to Varric's ears.

"Shh," came Kaaras's reply, his voice so gentle and caring that Varric's heart _ached._ "There's no need to get so worked up about it. None of us can be perfect in everything."

" _You_ are," Cassandra insisted, dragging him back down for another deep, demanding, yet joyous kiss. She was pouring all of her pent up feelings into the kiss and Varric wondered how in the world some people managed to see anything worthwhile in his romance novels because it was clear to him now that he had been doing even basic things all wrong. If anything he was now getting good practice on what to do and not to do in romance.

Kaaras responded with a chuckle. "Trust me, Cass," he said, holding out his hand, fingers splayed wide as if expecting something. Just then his staff flew into his hand as if jerked by invisible strings and his grip closed around the shaft tightly. "I'm anything but perfect."

Innocuous words but the _way_ he said them...Nope it was time to go, time to go right now or else there was going to be a whole eyeful of stuff Varric absolutely did not want to see whenever he would try to get to sleep later. He quickly hurried down the rest of the stairs on the tips of his toes, opened the door as quietly as he could, and closed it as quietly as he could. He hoped that they were still too wrapped up in each other to notice the noise.

With at least a solid, thick piece of wood between him and the lovers, Varric felt much more comfortable about jogging away. The guard stationed at the end of the corridor gave him a puzzled look, no doubt remembering Varric from ten minutes ago.

 _"I'm sorry, Varric, but the Inquisitor has asked that no one disturb him right now," the soldier said, the perfect picture of polite, apologetic formality. Varric had a strange, visceral moment where he felt as if he was no longer standing in Skyhold but the Viscount's Keep, no eye emblazoned on the guard's chest but Kirkwall's crest. No matter where he went, from Tevinter all the way to wherever_ this _place was every single one of those guards sounded the same when turning someone down._

 _Varric opened his mouth but only got that far when Cassandra stepped up from behind him, the force of her glare palpable even without him looking at her. "He will see me," she said, her tone leaving no room for argument. There was only one correct answer for her statement, and she was very graciously giving the poor bastard in front of them time to save himself._

 _Even as blind drunk as she was (making her wash her face in cold water and drink some of it did little to help except getting rid of her slur) Cassandra could still be utterly terrifying. The guard swallowed visibly and somehow seemed to shrink under her glare, even though Varric didn't see him move or cower. Already that was much better than most people he had ever seen standing up under her assault. Still, he saluted smartly. "As you wish, Lady Seeker," he said respectfully. "You may pass."_

 _The distinction was clear, and even Cassandra picked up on it. "My friend comes with me," he said firmly, laying her huge hand on Varric's shoulder._

 _Maker, this was_ such _a weird alternate reality he had fallen into. Was he in the Fade again? This was certainly bizarre enough for it._

 _"Yes, Lady Seeker."_

"Best not to disturb them now," he told the guard in his best stage whisper. He winked and started walking away as quickly as he could before the guard could get over his confusion and question him further. He had notes to write.

Morrigan's head was _killing_ her.

She curled her lip and glared over the concoction she was waiting to boil over the fire. A mixture of elfroot, prophet's laurel, and crystal grace, along with drops of a lyrium potion that made the steam rising from the surface of the water turn a royal purple color. The fragrance alone made the pounding in her temples recede a little, but the nausea in her stomach still remained. That wouldn't go away until she actually drank the mixture, though.

Stupid, stupid Alistair. Stupid _alcohol._ Morrigan gritted her teeth together, but that made her head hurt worse and she soon stopped. Her mind was trapped in a foggy haze that no matter how many times she tried to pierce it, brought her nothing. She knew she had been drunk last night and she _knew_ that she had spoken to Alistair, as unusual as that sounded, but she doubted her memories were playing tricks on her. For some odd reason she did indeed go to Alistair, but what in the world they talked about eluded her.

She had to know what they talked about. Yet she would actually have to go _talk_ to Alistair for that and she _hated_ Alistair.

There were bubbles forming on the bottom of the kettle, and the whole thing was now a deep blue. Morrigan reached out and took it off the fire, magic making such mundane things as gloves entirely unnecessary, and poured herself a cup.

Something had definitely happened. Alistair's expression had been insufferably smug when they passed each other this morning, him leaving the kitchen and her entering, and the moment they looked at each other she saw it in his face. Morrigan told herself that she was going to track that idiotic Templar down and _beat_ it out of him if she had to. She was not going to leave him strutting around all prideful at her expense.

Her tea alleviated her headache in an instant and calmed her stomach long enough for her to scarf down a few rolls, and then some of the other inhabitants of Skyhold started to filter in. Morrigan bristled a little at the company and finished her snack as soon as possible and made her exit before the idiots could start staring at her and whispering like the fools they were. Did they think that they were being subtle? That she never noticed their gossip?

She almost ran right into Leliana as she exited the kitchen. The bard stopped just short of hitting her, and there was a brief moment where they stared at each other while their startled brains tried to process what happened. "Oh, good morning, Morrigan," Leliana said, recovering first. "Are you feeling better?"

How in the world did she know about that? "I feel fine," Morrigan snapped, her voice more annoyed than biting.

Leliana smiled, yet her eyes had that _knowing_ look to them that had Morrigan's gut sinking. "That's good," she said, hiding a giggle behind her hand as she stepped delicately around Morrigan and went into the kitchen. "Have a good day."

Ice hit her, and Morrigan clenched her hands into fists. Where in the world was _Alistair?!_ She stomped down the hall, intent on tearing the fortress apart brick by brick until she found that foolish prince and his stupid smile and forced the information out of him.

The raven tapping at his window alerted him to a message for him. Alistair frowned, then his eyebrows shot up as he noticed the seal of the Commander of the Grey stamped into the silver wax holding the envelope together. How could Darrian reply so quickly? He sent that letter only last night!

Alistair opened the window and the raven hopped in, presenting the letter to him with a self-important sqwak, as if demanding praise for a job well-done. He scratched its head and presented it with a small handful of corn, which it set about devouring while he broke the seal and opened the letter.

 _Dear Alistair,_

 _You know, your letter came at an awfully convenient time for me! Funny enough, I've been on my way to Skyhold for the last few weeks now, and I'm glad to know that you and Morrigan and Leliana are still there. I thought that in light of recent events with the Inquisition that I should grace the place with my presence, if even for a little while. I'm also bringing Nathaniel-you remember Nathaniel, Howe's son? -and Oghren with me, so it can be one big happy reunion! Don't tell anyone though, I wanted my arrival to be a surprise. ;)_

Maker, he still doodled those little faces on his letters. The handwriting and words were at once so achingly familiar that Alistair felt his heart give a little thud and he could absolutely understand how Morrigan was feeling. Not that he wanted to _bed_ Darrian, oh Maker no, but to simply see his friend again after so long, the one who stopped the Blight, especially after everything he was seeing the Grey Wardens were doing recently...

He kept reading.

 _I also want to thank you for the note you included in your letter. I know you did not have to tell me about how Morrigan was feeling, and I might have found out about it anyway, but thank you. I'll fix this immediately when I get there. You're a great friend Alistair, and even though Morrigan will always deny it and never thank you, she's lucky to know you._

Alistair snorted at that. He doubted that Morrigan ever thought such things, even subconsciously, but Darrian had such a wonderful and warm way of putting things that it made his heart fill with little butterflies. Just then he heard swift steps stomping up to his room and quickly shoved the letter in his pocket, knowing that he would not have any good excuse to be holding a letter stamped with the Commander of the Grey.

Just in time, too, as Morrigan suddenly barged in his room without even knocking in an odd repeat of what she had done the night before.

"What happened?" she demanded without any sort of preamble.

What exactly wasn't hard to guess, but Alistair could never resist playing with her. "Nothing much," he replied with a shrug. "I think Leliana's people managed to bribe one of the Orelsian nobles into not attacking Inquisition agents on their land, Cullen's soldiers are blustering their way through by hitting people with swords until they give in, I think Corypheus is-"

"Do _not_ play dumb with me," Morrigan snapped, lightning dancing between her fingertips threateningly as she raised a hand and pointed at him. "You _know_ what I'm talking about."

"Actually, I don't at all," Alistair lied between his teeth, smiling at her. "What are you talking about?"

The fury in her eyes was what warned him. It was an instinct of his that had been honed over the long months of constant travel with her, never fading even after all of these years. His knees dropped, sending him to the floor as if his legs had just been hacked off, except that was precisely what he had planned to do and he barrelled forward in his crouch. He had moved so fast that Morrigan had no time to adjust her aim and the bolt of lightning soared right over his head, striking the far wall of the room with a loud crack and the smell of ozone. Alistair rushed on, tackling Morrigan around her knees with a loud laugh and sending them crashing to the ground.

Using his surprise to his advantage, Alistair quickly cast his Templar powers out, dispelling the other bits of magic Morrigan might have been trying to summon and casting a silence upon her. It was all he dared to do, anything stronger would have hurt her or made her sick, and while the thought was awfully tempting after what she just tried to do Alistair knew what kind of trouble he would land himself into for it. Instead he took advantage of her disorientation to leap to his feet and bolt out the door, taking the stairs three at a time, as fast as he dared as he raced down. Had a Templar ever really gotten the better of Morrigan before? Knowing her upbringing, he doubted it. He doubted Morrigan had any idea what to do in such a case.

Two seconds later, there came a scream of " _ALISTAIR!"_ that chased him down the stairs like a vengeful demon of rage, spitting fire and all.

Now what was that? Varric paused in his writing and looked up, thick brows furrowing as he tried to process what he had just heard. It took a few moments, but after he finally understood-"Oh no," he muttered out loud and shook his head. "Makerspeed, Alistair," he said, going back to his writing. He was not interrupting that one, not on his life. He was occasionally dumb, but he was not suicidal, no matter how his adventures with Hawke painted him.

The Inquisitor too, to be fair. But it seemed here he also got into much less dangerous work at times and more had his hand right on the beating pulse of a beautiful fortress...How people's lives all intertwined with each other, in every way. Like last night...he had never seen anything like that during his time with Hawke.

 _"Kaaras, please, we'd like to talk to you about something," Cassandra said in earnest as they ascended the steps into Kaaras's room._

 _The qunari's head tilted up, his eyes frowning in worry. "Is something wrong?" he asked immediately._

 _Varric very much wanted to just sink into the floor and never be seen again. He was a dwarf, shouldn't stone love him? "Well, more like Seeker with just the resident lovable dwarf tagging along," he clarified with a shrug._

 _Kaaras's face still frowned, but he turned to Cassandra. "What is it, Cass?" he asked, his voice going noticeably softer as he addressed her._

 _Her chin was jutting out in that stubborn, yet resolute way of her that was at once both admirable and very mulish at the same time. "I wanted to talk to you about us," she said, her voice still strong and yet there was a thread of misery running through it that had Varric wincing._

 _Alright nevermind, he would help her out anyway. Especially with the way Kaaras was getting out of his chair like that, all worry and tender care as he reached out and took her hands gently in his own. 'What is it?" he asked._

 _Varric opened his mouth, but-_

 _"I want you to put your staff inside of me."_

 _He had no idea whether to flee the room or howl with laughter until he died. Kaaras was caught in a comical expression of puzzlement and suspicion, and Varric saw him glance in his direction before turning back to Cassandra. "W-What do you mean?" he asked._

 _Cassandra turned to Varric as well. "I told you this wouldn't work," she muttered to him._

 _Yep, he was definitely going to have to help. He cleared his throat and tried to explain._

When did he become a relationship advisor anyway? Certainly not an appointed position. He never offered anything like such a service, it was just Cassandra who had drawn him into such a web as this. Varric sighed a little and tapped his quill against his lip, before continuing to write. Perhaps it was just because he could explain himself far better than most people.

 _"Oh," Kaaras said, turning back to Cass. "You meant_ that?"

 _"Yes, I know, it's a terrible shame," Cassandra groaned, making to turn. "I understand, I should not have-"_

 _That was all he got, as Kaaras caught her arm and pulled her against his chest and wrapping her in his embrace. "You silly, silly thing," he murmured into her hair. "Why would you think I would ever turn you away? I love you and I love learning each new thing about you. How could I not love you and adore your little kinks?"_

 _Cassandra was blushing like red lyrium, putting a hand up to her mouth. "Kaaras, I-I-"_

 _"Shh," Kaaras whispered, cupping her face in his hands and kissing her deeply._

Oh yeah, he was definitely doing something wrong in his Sword and Shield books. He came going to take some good notes and-

There was a crashing noise downstairs. A whole series of them, actually, akin to the sound of a gurn on caffeine trampling through a library. With a groan he got up and began jogging down, hoping he got there before Morrigan actually hurt or killed someone.

It had been two days since that incident, and Morrigan refused to so much as look at him. She treated him like the furniture, something that simply did not exist. Which was fine by Alistair. She could have her petty revenge, he saw nothing wrong with it, especially when he knew that Darrian was coming and she didn't. He still won in the end.

Of course that didn't stop him from always making sure someone was around whenever he went anywhere. He wasn't that stupid, he knew Morrigan was at her deadliest when everyone thought she was acting way she truly felt. After all she sent them all to murder her own _mother_ without even the slightest bit of warning or show of hatred to Flemeth beforehand.

His secret was making him want to giggle like a boy again. Morrigan might have claimed that he never really grew up...and that was mostly right, to be fair. But watching how Morrigan glared at him while pretending that she didn't care in the slightest about what he was hiding was such a rare treat that he was going to enjoy as long as possible.

Not from everyone, of course. Leliana had cornered him an hour after the fight between him and Morrigan had been pulled apart and demanded in that soft way of her what that letter he received said and how the raven managed to sneak past her. Alistair bristled at her nosing, even though he understood that it was her job, but the expression in her eyes was quite frankly terrifying now so he admitted everything while asking ( _not begging)_ her to make sure Morrigan never found out. Leliana had just smiled mysteriously at him, but he was pretty certain she agreed since Morrigan never acted any different and Alistair knew that Morrigan could not at all keep a secret to save her life. Kaaras had to know too, and Alistair figured it was best to tell him personally than to wait for him to find out through Leliana.

Which is why when he suddenly heard the blare of trumpets from the guards at the gatehouse, a sound Alistair had _never_ heard before in Skyhold and to be honest he had no idea they even _had_ such a thing here. But he saw right then-and it was so quick that he knew that if he had been looking anywhere else except right at Kaaras then he would have missed it-he watched Kaaras and Leliana exchange a knowing smirk. It hit him like a bucket of cold water, yet right after it filled him with warmth and such a rush of excitement that he almost leaped to his feet. Darrian was here, he was _here_ and he had not seen him in _years_ and Alistair honestly had no idea how he was act. His friend, his Commander and-

"The Warden-Commander of Fereldan, Darrian Tabris!" a herald announced, throwing open the main doors to Skyhold to let the morning sun shine in. It framed his silver armor and backlit him as if he was covered in some sort of halo, as if the Maker had blown a great big kiss on the man right before he walked in.

He heard the gasps all around. It was not a big surprise, the Hero of Fereldan was a legend all across Thedas, on par with Aveline and the Black Fox, a figure to be heard of only in stories and never seen in real life. As if drawn by some sort of string, his head turned to look at Morrigan. She wasn't facing him, which he was very grateful for because she might have tried to kill him again for it, but he could still see her well enough.

He was frozen. He had never, ever seen that expression on her face before, and had no idea she was even capable of feeling such an emotion. Like...he couldn't even explain it properly. It was like she had never seen the sun before, and the opening of the doors had brought the shine of light to her eyes for the first time in her life.

Oh _wow_ that sounded pretty great actually. Where was Varric? He needed to give him that line, it was amazing.

Just then a figure appeared in the door, walking up the stairs. Alistair's eyes did not fully register and see him yet, but the way he walked, his stride, the way his shoulders were held...Alistair recognized that far sooner than the figure's face. It hit him right in the chest, a pang of nostalgia so strong that it unfroze him and he felt himself standing, even though he could barely feel himself moving.

And yet Morrigan moved much sooner, much quicker. A _sound_ broke through the air, something Alistair didn't quite understand at first until he realized that it was a _squeal_ coming from _Morrigan_ of all things and he watched her leap right over the table to _sprint_ towards Darrian. The elf turned, his smile brighter than the sun, and rushed forward to meet her, like how every typical romance story went. Then he scooped her up and swung her around and Alistair swore he heard a _giggle_ coming from her right before the sound was silenced by Darrian's lips against hers.

It would have been so sweet and incredible if it weren't the fact that this was _Morrigan_ and Alistair just was not equipped to process this sort of scene. The Maker Himself coming down to have a chat would have been less surreal.

"Hey there lad," he heard another familiar, growling voice reach his ears that sent another pang going through him. He looked down, realizing he had absolutely missed the entrance of Darrian's companions and now in front of him was a dwarf he could have recognized anywhere.

"Hey Oghren," he said, giving a little smile and a wave.

The dwarf smirked and stroked his beard, as fiery as it had always been, and looked around, his eyes immediately landing on Dagna. "Well hey there little nugglet," he said, sidling over to her with a lecherous smirk Alistair knew well. "I'd say, you got a rump that would look _perfect_ covered in Oghren's special sauce."

There was a moment of shocked, horrified silence. Alistair was pretty sure that Darrian and Morrigan hadn't heard it, though.

Then Sera _shrieked_ with laughter.

Nope, everything was fine.


	8. Weird and Wonderful

Varric, while being a scoundrel in every possible way as he liked to introduce himself, was still a gentleman at heart. His mother had raised no barbarian (well, not two of them anyway) so he was quite aware of the fact that staring was universally considered rude. Even mabari seemed to think so, from what his adventures with Hawke had shown him. Yet he absolutely could not help himself with how much he was staring at Morrigan and had been staring at her for the past twenty minutes. She hadn't even _noticed_ anything yet which was almost just as weird as what he was staring at her _for_ in the first place.

"Is she...always like this?" he whispered as he leaned closer to Alistair. Not as if Morrigan could hear them anyway, they were clear across the room, but it was still good to be safe.

"Oh yeah, it's sickening isn't it?" Alistair replied, clearly enjoying himself while simultaneously looking like he wanted to vomit all over the place. He shuddered a little, his armor rattling. "I mean, I guess it's great that they love each other and all and I'm happy for them but _Maker_ I'm trying to have a drink here!"

The (gentleman) dwarf didn't quite agree. It was far more _weird_ than anything else. Morrigan didn't seem at all to be the fawning type, and yet here she was, a textbook example of a flustered girl batting her eyes and giggling for her knight in armor. He thought this kind of stuff only existed in bad romance stories (like his own), yet here she was just...shamelessly giggling as if she had no idea that the rest of them were there. Heck, maybe she didn't. It was a straight-up skill at this point, maybe some kind of magic? No one was that blind naturally, especially not someone like Morrigan.

He guessed he could have to take some more notes. Watching Morrigan hanging off Darrian's arm with her glass of wine, whispering something to him which would make them both erupt in laughter was...well it would be sweet if it wasn't Morrigan. Leliana was watching them as if she saw a new species appear right in front of her and Kaaras was making a very valiant attempt at trying to enjoy the dinner in Skyhold and listen to what Cassandra was saying, but his gaze kept going back to them and his fork constantly missed what he was trying to stab on his plate.

"Ya can't swallow it all down, can ye boy?" Oghren said with an enormous guffaw as his hand gave Alistair a slap on the shoulder that nearly sent him crashing into his plate of food. Some of the ale sloshed out of the Warden's cup and he swore as he tried to wipe it off the surface of the table. "Yer supposed to be puttin' it in your mouth, kid, not the table!" He roared with laughter, clearly thinking his own innuendos were the funniest things ever.

"Then why isn't _your_ mouth stuffed with it, Oghren?" Alistair replied testily as he took a drink of his ale, almost protectively, as if he thought he didn't get it down quickly enough then Oghren was going to do something even worse and ruin his beer altogether.

"Because I'm not _gay,_ that's why!" Oghren _roared,_ bringing the other conversations in the hall to a halt as his voice boomed across it. Even Maryden's lute made a peculiar twanging noise as her last few notes ran into a figurative wall.

There was one awkward beat. Then another. Then a snort came from Darrian. "What was all of that talk between you and Zev, then?" he asked, with a clear grin on his face that told everyone that he knew precisely the type of reaction those words would prompt—

"What're you talking about?!" Oghren nearly exploded, _gulping_ down the entire rest of his ale in a few swift, loud swallows (Varric had _never_ seen anyone, even Bull, drink that fast) and slamming the mug down. "What, two men can't be friends before the whole damn world starts talkin' about that kind of nonsense?! Stupid, prissy elf strutting around like a little who—"

" _Anyway!"_ Kaaras interrupted, clapping his hands together with a loud report that had everyone jumping and snapping their heads around to look at him. "Before we all start fighting and heads start to roll across the floor, Darrian Tabris!" He turned to Darrian with a bright smile and raised his mug. "A toast to the Hero of Fereldan! It's an honor to have you here!"

"Here!" Everyone cheered, raising their mugs, except for Oghren, who complained loudly about how he had already finished his drink.

Really, Varric has to give the Inquisitor a ton of credit for always knowing how to diffuse a situation. Then again with how calm he was and a mage it was probably an innate talent, or at the very least a necessary one, but Varric was still more than impressed with how he always knew what to say.

When their mugs were down and everyone a little more mellow and drunk, Varric turned to Alistair. "So, tell me Peaches," he said, watching Alistair's ears turn pink at his nickname. He had to grin over that. "What is it like knowing the Hero of Fereldan? The defeater of the Fiftth Blight? Slayer of the Archdemon? I mean you didn't just follow him as some sort of Warden-Commander, he's your friend! How does that make you feel?"

Alistair gave a laugh and stuffed an enormous slice of roasted beef into his mouth and chewed it before swallowing. Great Andraste's ass that man could _eat,_ who thought it was a good idea to bless him with such a huge mouth anyway? "It feels pretty darn great to be honest," he said with a laugh and gave Varric a knowing look. "Not as if _you_ don't know anyway. How does it feel to be the friend of Hawke? The Champion of Kirkwall? Vanquisher of the Arishok? Revolutionary?"

"I asked you first, Peaches," Varric said with a chuckle, cutting his sausage into pieces. "There's gotta be some things that you did together that aren't super secret 'we-don't-tell-anyone' type of things, you know?"

"Oh yes, there are," Alistair said with a grin, knowing swigging his drink. "Let's see though, how do I feel? Well I feel glad that I wasn't the one having to make all the decisions, trust me on that. Not that I want to say I'm irresponsible!" He was so quick to jump to his own defense on a accusation that hadn't even been said that Varric was sure had had to have heard it a lot. "It's just, when I have to make the decisions and I know everyone else is looking up to me and whatever I say or do can affect all of us I just...I freeze up. I have completely no idea what to do, or where to start first. It just starts looking like everything is a good idea to me, and everything has equal ups and downs so as a result nothing gets done."

Varric nodded a little, wisely. "That's a very wise point of view, especially to acknowledge this in yourself. But that doesn't really answer my question. How did you _feel_ being around him and having him as your friend?"

There was a groan. Alistair clearly knew he wasn't getting out of this one so easily, and he stumbled over his words as he tried to explain. "Well, I mean, he was my only friend at the time after Ostagar. It was...well it was great to have someone to open up to. He was always very kind and patient, but Maker with how he talked to Morrigan all the time—"

"Ha! I thought it was real hot," Oghren chimed in, acting as if he had been a part of the conversation the whole time and that someone had actually asked for his input. "The stuff we do now is pretty great, getting into all those dark murmurings and the Calling, unraveling the spells behind it or all that whatcha call them—bah I don't remember. Anyway it would be much nicer if we had some of that Warden and witch action, am I right?"

"I can _hear_ you, you know, nasty dwarf," Morrigan's entirely unamused voice floated down from the further end of the table. Finally she had turned away from Darrian to throw Oghren a nasty look and _finally_ she looked like herself again, and it brought the oddest feeling of relief to Varric that he hadn't felt in a long time.

Dagna snorted a little, rolling her eyes. "I think they could hear you down in Lydes at this rate," she commented, which had a round of laughter rolling around the table.

Oghren snorted, unaffected as ever. "Well _good!_ The Warden's always up for suggestions, ain't ya pal!" he raised a mug to Darrian and swallowed it, and it was unclear whether or not he was truly expecting an answer, so Darrian decided to ignore him. It worked for the most part, as when he was done—with the strings of his beard covered in a thick foam—he whirled around to face the two of them again. "See? He doesn't talk much sometimes. But when ya got Morrigan around he starts squealin' like a Casteless bein' tossed a copper."

"You make the most vivid images imaginable, Draft," Varric muttered, scribbling some notes down as quickly as he dared. "I'll be sure to use a few of them."

"Tell em who said it so the ladies know who to throw themselves at next!" Oghren replied immediately, his mind switching back to its favorite, well-worn topic just as any horse trodding the same path for the thousandth time.

"So, Oghren" Alistair began, in his "questioning" tone that Varric had long since learned to pick up on by now and pay attention to. Even with all of his silliness, Alistair still managed to be something of an expert at prying stories out of people and he seemed _entirely_ unaware of it. Varric had no idea if it was a good thing or a bad thing. "What have you been getting up to since the last time we met? You mentioned something about a way to end the Calling?"

"Yeah, but that's all hush hush, boy, and really boring to be honest. Woulda put Branka right to sleep, that story," Oghreen finished his ale with a practiced movement and began pouring himself another. Varric counted in his head for a moment, and could at least say with certainly that this was at _least_ his sixth ale, and he showed no signs of stopping whatsoever. "But there was this one time we went to sleep and then woke up and were tied up! By a bunch of Dalish at that!" He scoffed and shook his head. "They were all arguin' about what to do with us because we were trespassing or whatever gets people all wound up these days, and Darrian was trying to get free without them noticing him. He almost had it actually, but one of the Dalish walked by and saw what he was doing and stopped him by tying him up again. I thought it was a silly idea myself, you can easily break these things if you want to."

He took a long drink, much longer than Varric thought possible, until he noticed that his eyes were darting about, looking for something. He knew that look anywhere. The glint of a story teller wanted to see who was interested before he went on. "So what happened with you and the Dalish?" he asked, hoping such a front would be enough.

Oghren snorted and from the sheer tone that snort included it was evidently more than a little enough. "Well one of them was a clear idiot, since he didn't really think about my beard. When he went to touch it, to shave it off or whatever I had no idea but I would have kicked that sucker right in the baby makers otherwise, the squirrel that was living in my beard jumped out and attacked him. Instant chaos!"

"The _what_ living in your _what?"_ Alistair said, but Oghren plowed right on through, oblivious to the remarks he was getting or perhaps simply not caring, and plowed right on with no chance of anyone stopping him.

"He shrieked like a little girl, that's what he did!" the dwarf roared with laughter, slapping his mailed knee with a clap of metal on metal that had Varric's ears wincing from the noise. "Ya shoulda seen it, this little twig Dalish elf screamin' his head off and flailing around with this damned squirrel latched to his hand and then all the others try to jump in and get it off and it just ended up going after them too! It was one of the greatest things I ever saw in my life! Hey Darrian, remember that?" He directed the last sentence as a call down the table.

Darrian and Morrigan looked up, and from what it looked like Darrian had been in the process of feeding Morrigan strawberries and great Maker almighty did he really see that right? Yes, yes he did. Darrian was holding a strawberry and Morrigan had _clearly_ been about to eat it. That still made no sense. He was hallucinating. He—"Yeah, I do," Darrian said with a chuckle. "The one with the rabid squirrel in your beard, right?"

"That's the one!"

"Mhmm," Darrian said with a nod and turned back to Morrigan, seeing that his services were no longer required. He teased her lips with the tip of the strawberry, and she opened her mouth and bit it, quick as anything and very playfully missing his fingers by an inch or so. Darrian chuckled and kissed her cheek and—

Wow, he really did just see that with his own two eyes, didn't he?"

" _Now,_ I'm going to be sick," Alistair said with a definitive tone to his voice. "Hang on a moment I'll be right back."

"Told ya you could never hold your ale!" Oghren yelled at him.

Alistair rolled his eyes and Varric was certain he was about to be witness to yet another round of oddly affectionate bickering from the two of them when the sound of barking caught the attention of most people in the hall. Of course it was from the mabari, as old and grizzled as he was he still could make a mighty sound, and he was currently unleashing it on Bull. The qunari managed to dwarf (hey, he knew how the saying went it was true!) the dog in comparison, but the mabari seemed utterly fearless and unintimidated by the snarling silvery beast above him.

"Ha! That's a good boy, there!" Bull said after a few moments, giving loud guffaw that managed to somehow utterly fail at making him look any less fierce. "Now quite as good as mine, but still!"

At that the mabari's ears went flat along his head and he snarled dangerously. Even Varric, who had seen Hawke in action plenty of times, felt an unease hook inside of his gut at the noise. Maker, mabari could pull a knight off his horse, they could leap and sink their teeth into his leg and drag him off his steed and savage him while he lay stunned on the ground—

Bull snarled deep in his throat and _roared._ Varric could have sworn the plates rattled from the force of it, water trembled in glasses, and dust fell from the ceiling. Oh that a was a good one, dust from the ceiling, he would use that later. It would be a great embellishment, one for those who were not present to laugh at his exaggerations, and the others who were to shudder at the memory of dust _actually_ falling into their food.

The mabari, in return, just tilted his head and Varric nearly laughed at how _bored_ a dog could look. Who did laugh though, was Alistair, along with Oghren. "He fought the Archdemon with us, Iron Bull!" Alistair commented at the qunari's puzzled expression. "Bit him right on the tail, too! You aren't gonna faze him."

Instead the mabari...well the only way Varric could describe it as he puffed up. He even _rolled his shoulders_ in preparation for what he was about to do, then he threw back his ears and _howled._

"Maker's balls!" he barely heard Blackwall scream over the noise as everyone proceeded to clap their hands over their ears to block out the noise. Varric could swear his ears were about to start bleeding any second, his whole head was ringing from the echoes and great ancestors and Stone-damned whatever not a single solitary story of a full mabari howl did it any sort of justice! He was going to find every lying bastard who downplayed the tales of a mabari howling and beat them to death with their own shoes before making them _eat them._

Then just like that, it ended. Varric cracked open this eyes to see the dog wagging his tail up at Bull, who was busy smiling while also looking like he had just been the chew toy of a Highland Ravager. "Damn, you're a good one," Bull said, holding out his fist in front of the dog. The mabari eyed it for a moment, then lifted his paw and bopped it against Bull's fist.

...What was the dog's name, again? Varric could swear he had heard it mentioned before in the stories, but it wasn't coming to him. And no one had actually bothered to introduce the mabari's name, of course.

"If you two are done blowing our ears out, maybe you can sit down and actually enjoy the food?" Kaaras asked, his lips smiling and yet Varric knew that particular tone of strained he was speaking in very well. Lightning was about to start _flying_ if they kept it up. Or worse, Cassandra.

Varric gave her a glance and yeeep oh no, he knew that look, and at the same time oh _yes_ because it was probably the first time in his whole life where he saw that particular expression on her face and it _wasn't_ aimed at him. He was going to enjoy this.

Sadly, Bull was much smarter than him. Or perhaps Cassandra just had a thing for qunari and not a thing for dwarves because Varric was still half-certain that if he had gotten into such a silly contest with a mabari and had gone this far in it she would already have been dragging him somewhere by the collar. Bull laughed easily and threw up his enormous hand in surrender. "Hey, hey, we're cool Cass!" he said with a smile that was more than a little nervous coming from Bull. Of course he was trying to hide it but Varric was a professional actor, he knew all the tells. Yet there was a glint of mischief in his eye. "I suppose the roaring contest is out, but I know there's something you can't do!" he spoke to the mabari before proceeding to grab one of the giant kegs full of beer (an unopened one thank the Maker) and lift it clean over his head. "Like this!"

"Hey, watch the ale!" Oghren roared.

"He's a doggie, ya dumb silver ox! How's he supposed to lift it anyway!" Sera yelled at him.

"He's smart. Quick. He thinks and puzzles, bright heart led by sunny days," Cole commented and Varric nearly jumped out of his skin because he was just _there._ Gosh just when he thought he had the kid nailed down with that... The hat tilted as Cole tilted his head at the same time as the mabari. "He wants to chase his tail," Cole added as if this was an important fact that had to be announced.

However, the mabari did not chase his tail. Instead he sized up Bull, and then in one smooth motion leaped on top of one o the open kegs, then used its height to leap onto the barrel held above Bull's head. He ignored the yell of "Hey!" from the qunari and barked happily, looking quite pleased with himself.

"The dog has exceptional balance," Solas commented, sounding rather impressed, which coming from him was a damned miracle. The Breach really _did_ screw things up in Thedas, didn't it?

Bull frowned at the dog. "Get off there," he muttered, rolling the barrel a little. The mabari simply walked forward, like a circus performer dancing on a rolling log, and just then the entire table burst out into laughter at the absurdity of it all.

"Well Boss, I'll say that's another point in the dog's favor," Krem commented, inducing another round of laughs and cheers from the rest of the Chargers. Dalish looked as if she was about to pass out from lack of air and Grim was grunting into his beer, seemingly unaware that he had already slopped a good portion of it onto the table.

Iron Bull threw them all a look of betrayal. "Really?" was all he asked.

"You made your bed, Boss! Time to sleep in it!"

Varric was shaking his head again as he turned back to Alistair, keeping an eye on Bull in the meantime. The giant seemed to be trying to figure out how best to put down the keg without injuring the dog, yet at the same time his pride wasn't letting him ust concede a defeat like that. It was amusing to watch. "He's really something, isn't he?" he asked, jerking his thumb at the mabari.

"Oh Maker yes, you wouldn't believe it. One of the smartest dogs—heck one of the smartest _things_ I've ever met in my whole life!" Alistair said, shaking his head in amazement. "Beats the hell out of Morrigan, that's for sure."

"I _heard_ that, you little wretch," Morrigan's voice came down from the table.

"Good! I was worried I was mumbling too much!" Alistair retorted, turning to give her a little wave which might have ended in a fireball aimed at his head if Darrian hadn't taken Morrigan's hand and kissed it. Immediately Morrigan dissolved into a fit of giggles, while Alistair turned back to face Varric. "And that's also why I love him. Like a brother, I mean. I wouldn't have been able to get away with near as much stuff as that if he wasn't around to cool her off all the time."

"So they _were_ always like that?" Varric asked again, since he knew good and darn well that Alistair had never properly answered his question earlier.

Alistair looked a little ill. "No," he said, and the little bastard was clearly waiting for Varric to look relieved before he hit him with the killing blow: "They were _much_ worse."

"Mm speak for yourself, kid. It was real fun listenin' to em go at it sometimes."

"Maker's breath Oghren _please_ do not continue that thought I am _begging_ you I will pay you in pickle juice if you don't talk for the rest of the night!"

Oghren just threw back his head and laughed and everyone near him proceeded to scoot another few inches away. Just as usual, the warrior did not seem to care or even really notice and shoved an entire roll of bread into his mouth before washing it down with ale. He was a strange, cursed entity too, but in an entirely different way than the intelligent dog, the Hero of Fereldan, the Witch of the Wilds, or the late king's royal bastard.

"So, what was this you were in the middle of mentioning before we were interrupted?" he heard Kaaras asking Darrian and immediately Varric's head popped up. A story! And he had already missed a good chunk of it! "Something about the Siren Sisters?"

"Ah," Darian began with a slightly nervous, if good-humored chuckle. "Well, there isn't really much to tell, to be honest."

"Not much to tell?!" Oghren commented. Ancestors he never actually did shut up, did he? "They were makin us see all sorts of weird stuff! Worse than the darkspawn juice, I'd say!"

The elf gave a little shrug. "Well yes, that's true," he said with a little chuckle as he sipped his wine. "We did run into them and they tried to grasp us in their illusions, but I," he seemed to falter for a moment, not out of fear or triggering some sort of memory, but perhaps...embarrassment? No, it couldn't be that, he as too confident...No he knew how everyone else was going to react, that's what it was. "I was loyal to Morrigan, so they couldn't chain me. And by this time I was _more_ than well acquainted with magic and its effects on people, so I knew they were trying to trick me with visions. That's why I didn't work. I just walked out, much to their surprise, and I had to pick Oghren up and haul him after me since he refused to go."

Oghren grumbled something into his ale, and he was surprisingly quiet about it given his usual tendency to yell his commentary whenever he felt like it should be heard. Varric was more than a little curious and desperate to poke him about it, but he knew the bristling, snarling type of reply he'd get. Just like Fenris, except instead of being a pile of emotional issues and trauma just begging to be let out to the first sympathetic ear, Oghren was a pile of emotional issues and trauma just begging to be let out provided that enough alcohol was in his system. Given the clarity of his eyes, they weren't even close. Varric decided to try in several hours.

"That is so..." Morrigan began before a small expression of panic flitted across her face as she stopped whatever she was about to say in its tracks. "Amazing," she said at last, in a tone that clearly indicated this fell short of her true intentions. "It is most fortunate that you were able to foil them, Darrian. The Siren Sisters are a formidable foe!"

Darrian leaned forward and kissed her cheek. "You are my fortune," he said simply, and while Varric heard Alistair gagging next to him he saw Morrigan flush a bright red and she _squealed_ a little.

"Inquisitor, I have an idea," Cassandra's voice rose up and _Maker_ she was drunk again, Varric could _hear_ it. On one stone, _yes,_ on the other stone, oh _no._

Kaaras, the poor, clueless soul, turned to Cassandra with his eyebrows raised. "Yes, Cass?" he said with a smile and intertwined their fingers together.

Cassandra giggled a little and kissed his hand, then said in a firm, confident voice that held absolutely no amount of joking whatsoever: "You should prove yourself against the Sirens too! To show the Inquisition how amazing their leader really is!"

There was a brief moment of silence. Even Bull and the dog stopped what they were doing in order to stare.

Varric held back a groan. He was _not_ getting dragged into this mission, no way, no how.


	9. The Showdown

"And how many dragons did you and the Warden kill? Two? Boss and us have four times that amount already! What was the number last time I checked? Seven, eight?"

"Oh yeah big whoop! You get all your little minions all geared up with their fancy brand new weapons and armor, made by your own personal smiths, of course you go kill a dragon!" Oghren threw up his (empty) hands as he spoke, which was an achievement as the last time he performed the gesture he had sent a half-eaten pickle flying across the hall and right into Blackwall's ale. "You know what we were fighting with? Scraps! We _scavenged_ all of our armor and equipment, and we still kicked dragon ass not one, but twice!"

"And besides, you all went out into the depths of the wilds to find a dragon!" Alistair contributed, obviously encouraged by Oghren's somewhat-brazen putting down of the whole Inquisition in the middle of their own fortress. "First one we killed? We only got to after murdering an entire _village_ of cultists who all wanted us dead—"

"-You're _welcome_ for the free space by the way, squatters!" Oghren barked.

"-and the Archdemon, oh boy! We had to push the darkspawn bodies out of the way to get to the top of Fort Drakon! We were practically swimming up the stairs in blood, just the four of us! We're Grey Wardens and all and that's our job but we must have kill half of Denerim's population in terms of numbers before we even got to the Archdemon and killed _it_ too!"

Bull laughed uproariously. "You and the rest of Fereldan teamed up to take down the Archdemon, big deal! And you killed a fat, well-fed, spoiled dragon who never had to hunt or defend herself before you came along and took her by surprise."

Morrigan, who had for the most part stayed out of the quickly spiraling conversation, not really out of a sense of dignity but mostly because she was too busy whispering things to Darrian and giggling with him, turned to Bull. She raised an eyebrow. "Come now, qunari,' she said with a chuckle, "one who respects dragons as much as you know that the beasts can never truly be tamed or docile in any way. The dragon let the cultists live because it was convenient for her to have them around, for free food and shelter for her young."

"Besides, I'd say a well-fed and healthy dragon is a much more dangerous foe than one who has to live on what they can catch in the wilds," Alistair piped up.

"Kaaras fights demons on a regular basis, and Templars powered up on red lyrium, and mages! They're all much more of an enemy than half-wild darkspawn!" Sera cut in over her beer.

Cassandra groaned. "Now, now let's—"

Morrigan's laugh cut her off. "The darkspawn have nearly destroyed all of Thedas four times over whenever a Blight has occurred. No Templar, red or otherwise, has managed even half that much. The Chantry themselves are laughably weak compared to the darkspawn threat."

Cassandra's neck flushed and her eyes flashed. "The Inquisitor could have beaten the Archdemon with his hands tied behind his back!" she nearly yelled over all of the other arguments, making everyone jump. "At least a mage does not need his hands to be useful!"

"You want to bet, Seeker?" Morrigan snarled, rising from her chair, ignoring the protesting shouts of "Hey!" from all of the non-mages present.

"Betting are for those unsure of themselves," Cassandra shot back, rising up with her. "I _know_ Kaaras would win in a duel against the Warden-Commander, effortlessly even!"

"Um, do I get a say in this at all?" Kaaras asked somewhat jokingly, although for once no one seemed to be listening to him. If anything it was as if he had simply ceased to exist to everyone around him, except for Darrian who hid a snicker behind his ale mug.

"What time?"Morrigan demanded. "We can settle this right now!"

"No, tomorrow morning, even better where the whole Skyhold can see it!" Cassandra said, slamming her flat hand down on the table, making the cups and plates rattle from the force of it.

Some of the others around now started to look uneasy as they could clearly see their original banter and friendly competition quickly plummeting out of control. Suddenly it wasn't all fun and games anymore and things had taken a decided more serious turn without Cassandra, the usual moderator of such conversations, holding it back. Solas turned to Varric, the other moderator who always seemed to effortlessly glide into a conversation and smooth over tensions while remaining perfectly neutral to the whole affair. "Varric, aren't you going to do something to stop this?" he asked in a low whisper to the dwarf, who was currently busy scribbling furiously what looked like a bunch of nonsense into his journal. "People could get hurt with this ridiculous game of theirs!"

Varric managed a snort of laughter, his pen flying, yet his "writings" looked like pure nonsense, something a child might draw in their boredom. "Not on your life," Varric muttered, not even looking up from his work. "This just might be the greatest writing opportunity of my lifetime, I am not about to ruin it."

"Laughter, joy, anger, leaping flame and dancing mist, faces hidden behind faces," Cole muttered somewhere nearby, although for once Solas could not see him. "Darkness and light under smile, purity and hope under a tear in the world. Smile and tear dance, while the unstoppable force tries to break the unmovable object."

"What in the gobsmacking name of the Maker are you going on about _now,_ ya little weirdo?" Sera muttered, glancing at the spot next to her, even those Cole's voice was clearly coming from somewhere behind her.

Then he was just suddenly there. As if he had always been there. But he was on Sera's other side, out of her sight until he bent down and whispered, "Everything will be fine."

The _shriek_ from Sera made the horses in the stable outside whinny in fright and she whirled around, slamming a flask of ice down, except she met thin air as Cole was not longer there. "Where is he? Where is the little bastard!" she screamed, her furious eyes darting around.

"Hey hey can we watch where we throw the damned concoctions?!" Bull yelled, picking some ice out of his drumstick. "Some of us are trying to at here!"

"Oh pucker up horn-head, aren't your people supposed to be stronger than that?" Oghren replied, grinning as he glanced at his iced mug. "Lookit that, chilled ale! Thank you, sweetcheeks." He began to down it eagerly.

Dagna cringed at the sight. "Oghren please, you don't know _what_ kind of chemicals and substances are even in those in order to make them freeze things like that, they're not meant to be consumed—"

Oghren's empty mug thunked back on the table. "Mm, tastes like numbing! I like it!" the dwarf said, throwing back his head and laughing.

Alistair took some pity on the rest of them, and leaned in to mutter: "Don't worry, one time he drank a whole pot of deep mushroom extract that Zevran had been stewing to make some kind of poison. _He_ said he thought it was a soup, and aside from getting dizzy and passing out nothing really happened to him. Zev said that the pot had been enough to kill about five people, though, and one qunari."

"He was a lying little twinkle-toes! That was a great soup!" Oghren roared.

"Settled then! Tomorrow morning!" Cassandra interrupted triumphantly. "Be sure to show up, Morrigan, if your ego will allow it!"

"The only one who should be worrying about her ego is you, Seeker!" Morrigan said, her smirk well in place.

Solas just sighed and nibbled on a piece of dried jerky.

—

Despite the argument of last night, no one seemed particularly worried or anxious over the coming duel, or even offended at the insults had been thrown around. If anything there was more amusement than all the rest combined, and many whispered comments and giggles were centered around how unusual Cassandra and Morrigan were both acting when it came to their men, and how hilarious the sight was. More than once the giggles came to a hushed halt whenever Cassandra passed by, only to continue with greater intensity the moment the gossipers thought she moved out of earshot.

The dueling arena in the front courtyard had been spruced up some, the fences reinforced in case things got too wild and even moved back a little to give some extra room for the combatants involved. It seemed all of the free spaces available had been taken, and those who were annoyed at having to stand behind several rows of people sought to find better spots to watch the incoming duel from: such as the stairs leading up to the grand hall, the roof of the tavern and all of the windows, the ramparts overlooking the courtyard, all of them packed with spectators.

Of course with any event there had to be a lead up to it. Alistair and Bull, all in good fun naturally, wanted to have a preliminary duel between the both of them, as some of the random comments last night had apparently spurned a bit of a challenge between each other as well. "Sadly, Sten isn't here, he would be the more fitting choice for this kind of match," Alistair said as he hopped over the fence and into the middle of the arena.

Iron Bull actually paled a little at his words. "Oh no no, Maker or whatever no, not the Arishok," he said, waving his hands a little. "I know way better than to bugger _that_ fire. I'd be lucky if there was a shoebox around to put what was left of me in it."

Varric snorted from his perch, which was a chair he had dragged out to sit on so he could peer right over the fence. "Already much smarter than Hawke ever was," he commented. "But then again Hawke won that round."

"That Arishok was not Sten," Alistair replied, his voice firm and convicted.

"Oh, no arguments here," Varric remarked with a chuckle. "Combatants ready?"

To be honest Varric had never seen a more "ready" looking set of duelists his whole life. Alistair stood there in the sunlight, his armor shining silver like some kind of knight from a storybook tale, while faint lines of blue occasionally shimmered along its surface whenever he moved. Varric heard more than a few awed gasps at this, along with a question of, "Is that the famed Juggernaut armor? The one that legend says the Magister Harach crafted and resides in the Brecilian Forest?" from someone who Varric thought was Cillian but it was hard to tell over the murmuring of the crowd.

On the other hand, Bull looked no less different from his usual attire, although Varric noticed he had painted some sharp, bold red patterns on his face in vitaar. Whatever it meant or was supposed to do Varric had no idea, but he did know of its benefits to qunari. The Chargers were all on one side of the arena behind Bull, cheering him on and whistling and one of them was even throwing feathers into the air like some kind of organic confetti.

Alistair grinned and closed his helmet. "Ready," his muffled voice came from its depths.

"Then start!"

Of course it was Alistair who sprang forward first. Varric wasn't surprised, he was like a puppy in many ways, and one of those ways was that he always had some kind of energy that he needed to let out somewhere. Even as tired and restrained as he seemed to get throughout the years, it was still a core part of him that Varric knew would never really go away no matter how much he tried—although from what he had seen Alistair tried very little in that regard. Within a few steps he was in front of Bull and immediately ducking out of the way as the qunari finally snapped into action, swinging his axe down to crash it on Alistair's head, if Alistair had been there, of course.

Varric knew something had been off about the whole thing, Bull just standing there and letting Alistair rush him, and Alistair had too from how quickly he had avoided the attack. He had barely even lifted his sword yet in a true attack pose. But with Bull finally showing his move, Alistair darted around to his open side and jabbed with his sword there.

The tip came close, quite close in fact, but Bull moved faster than his enormous bulk implied, barely a blur as he came around with the shaft of his axe, catching the point of Alistair's sword and knocking it away from him. There was a gasp at the sight and Varric was certain that the sword had grazed Bull despite his maneuver, but he could see no scratch, no blood, and a part of him wondered if Bull had timed the parry precisely so that it would give such a theatrical twist to the whole scene. It wouldn't be out of his character, really.

With his sword pointing away Alistair was now wide open, but the Iron Bull's weapon was also preoccupied with deflecting the sword. Bull just solved this problem by taking his hand and trying to _punch_ Alistair directly in the face.

There was a _clang!_ as fist met steel, Alistair bringing his shield up at the last moment and letting it take the entire brunt of the blow. He skidded back an inch or two and Varric could see the dent in the thick metal from the force of Bull's hit, and from the hiss seeping through Bull's teeth he clearly felt the impact from that, too. That was the only pain Bull allowed himself to show though, as then he hefted his axe in his other hand and charged forward, using his usual tactic of bearing down upon an enemy with his sheer size and weight and letting it terrify them into panicking.

While most of the enemies they fought didn't really know what to do in such a situation, Alistair was a Grey Warden who fought ogres on a somewhat regular basis. The way he ducked and then rolled to the side out of the way of the attack was so practised it looked almost as if they had choreographed it beforehand. He was up again, his sword dancing in the light as he swung at Bull's ankle, deflected the blade of the axe, brought the sword up to cut his chest, jumped back from the handle coming up to try and smack his chin, and on and on they parried.

The crowd was cheering wildly at this point. Most of Skyhold had naturally been on Bull's side, a fan of his size and most of them already knowing how he fought, but with how skillfully Alistair was avoiding his attacks and even managing to make an attempt to strike back he was quickly becoming a favorite. He had already lasted twice as long as any of Bull's other dueling opponents who weren't Cassandra and Blackwall, which already made him more than qualified to be one of the Inquisitor's companions.

A little off to the side, Kaaras and Darrian watched with some interest, but also amusement. "He's really good actually, despite all of his chuckling around," Kaaras said to Darrian as Alistair sidestepped a cleverly-placed blow.

Darrian chuckled a little. "Yeah, he's a natural. It's hard to believe when I first met him he was just a bare green Warden of two months." He rested his elbows on the fence and place his chin in his hand, watching with almost a sort of bored air. "And I've never seen a qunari so...huge before. Or with such a sense of humor. He's a really great warrior to have."

"Mhmm, he usually sends people running with his size alone," Kaaras chuckled, looking down at Darrian. He seemed so...small in comparison. Even though Kaaras was well aware of how dangerous a foe the Hero of Fereldan no doubt was, and with the fact that he himself was a mage so hardly a danger in physical combat, he still felt bad over what was to come. A part of him felt that the Warden-Commander was so, just, breakable in his own way. "I'm really sorry about this, by the way," he said. "Normally I wouldn't entertain this kind of nonsense, but, ah..."

Darrian chuckled and gave a shrug. "Nah, don't apologize, I know how it is. I'm not one for duels either but, well, when Morrigan gets that look in her eye it's just best to do what she says."

Kaaras laughed with him. "Cassandra's much the same. I mean I don't think she would get angry or anything but ah, I just hate disappointing her, you know?"

There was a nod from Darrian, and then a chuckle as another blow to Alistair's shield gave it a much smaller dent aside the old one. "It's the worst when—ah!"

Bull had charged forward as Alistair stumbled back from the blow, clearly deciding to just end the little game already. He knocked aside Alistair's shield, and then picked him up effortlessly, plate armor and all and hauled him over to one side of the fence, where they had dragged it back to make more room. People were howling at this point, which only got worse as Bull flipped Alistair around and plunged him headfirst into a pile of wet earth that had been sitting on the other wide of the fence, leaving him stuck up to his elbows in the mucked while his legs flailed helplessly.

Kaaras winced. He knew that a lot of soil had been cleared to make a smooth, even ground for the dueling arena, but the ground was also where animals liked to walk, and feet, and he could only imagine all of the other vile things that pile of earth had in it, manure being the least of it all.

"Sorry pal," Bull said, wiping his hands and stepped aside from the kicking legs. "I'm not really in the business of regicide so you get a free pass."

Morrigan was _screaming_ in laughter, curled up on the ground with a wide space around her as everyone rather naturally edged away. Her laughter was honestly more than a little unsettling, and not just because she never really laughed.

"Well, that takes care of that," Blackwall chuckled. "Did Oghren find an opponent yet or...?" he looked around.

The dwarf had been quite vocal on his challenge, but no one had volunteered, either out of just being a bit afraid (or annoyed) of the insane dwarf or because they felt as if being so much taller than him it would give an unfair advantage. Dwarves weren't the most common in Skyhold, after all, and the only dwarf who might actually give Oghren a decent challenge was currently busy writing like a madman to pay attention to much else.

"You're up then you two!" Blackwall said, gesturing to Darrian and Kaaras.

A roar went up and Darrian smiled. "Ah, let's get this over with then, shall we?" he asked, chuckling and hopping the fence.

"Indeed."

Whereas Alistair's armor had been like silver, Darrian's Blood Dragon armor glittered like a bloodstained mirror. Every reflection was shown in dazzling detail across its striking surface, and the only thing that could possibly tear anyone's eyes away from the display was the greatsword that Darrian carried effortlessly in his hands. The blade was white as snow and glittering with bright blue lines that seemed reminiscent of lyrium, although something about the color was just a little off in comparison to real lyrium.

"Starfang," Varric whispered as he looked up just long enough to see what they were wearing. "I heard the stories, but..."

Kaaras himself had not as much flair in his outfit, but his staff made those who looked upon it shudder. Tempest he had named it, taken from the Tevinter ruins in the Western Approach. On its own it didn't look too impressive, a simple wooden staff wrapped in leather, but it was the gnarled branches at the top which held a skull wrapped tightly in their grip that gave the staff its fearsome appearance. The empty sockets of the skull glowed ever faintly, and a blue aura surrounded it, trailing flakes of snow in the air behind it and frosting the ground where Kaaras held the staff close enough.

"Ready?" Blackwall called. "Fight!"

Kaaras whipped Tempest up and shot a quick three blasts at Darrian, who used Starfang's blade to deflect them easily. The strange starmetal seemed to be high resistant to magic, something Kaaras took note of as he watched Darrian begin to move in a counterattack. The sword glowed, and he immediately threw down a barrier as the shockwave washed over him, crackling the magic and dissipating it almost as soon as he threw it up.

The Warden himself came charging right after it a breath later, the massive sword swinging and swinging. Kaaras felt his whole body jar from each hit and he was certain it was the magic in his staff that was making sure it wasn't breaking from all of the hits. He used a flash of light from his hand to blind Darrian while the next hit on Tempest made Darrian's blade catch fire.

Sadly, he didn't fall for the trick and drop his weapon, but Kaaras would have been honestly surprised if he did. It still allowed for enough of an opening for Kaaras to jump back and retaliate. The skull's eyes blazed with light and he swept Tempest forward in a quick, sharp motion and ice blasted out in front of him, freezing the ground solid and causing sharp icicles to shoot forward to impale the Warden.

Starfang's burning blade flashed, and Darrian hewed at the ice in front of him, cleaning slicing off their tips and rendering them harmless while they bashed and frosted over his armor. Then, he really took off as he leaped right over the ice with a yell and brought Starfang down with both hands.

Kaaras wanted to be nowhere _near_ that, and instinctively used a blast of fire to shoot himself away, skidding a good twenty feet away while following up with a fireball directed at Darrian right after. But he wasn't giving Darrian any room to breathe. He brought the other end to Tempest up and shot lightning from that, and then fire from the other end, and then lightning again, quick and hot and blasting.

Deflect after deflect Darrian took, some shots he knocked away with Starfang and others he turned to dodge completely, making his way through the onslaught of fire and lightning when he paused long enough to actually let people see what he was doing.

The Inquisitor frowned as he saw that while his shots were slowly Darrian down, none of them were really doing anything to give him a pause or stop him. Then suddenly his staff glowed blue again and a wave of freezing air and ice wailed from the skull, an elemental shift so quick and sharp that it would have left any mage but a magister feeling light-headed. But the shift in temperature from hot to cold made a loud _snap_ cross the air as the ground cracked and Darrian's feet were encased in ice. It would have snapped his armor as well, if it had been normal armor, anyway.

Darrian hunkered down, as if trying to fend off the cold, but then with a roar that made a tear spring in Bull's eye he charged forward, wrenching his feet free of the ice and barreling on.

Alright he was not little at all holy _shit—_

Kaaras simply leaped over the charging elf, more than grateful for his height and strength, and ran as Darrian had to bring himself to a full halt, leaving great gouges in the ground. And then, panting, Darrian started to laugh.

The qunari smirked to himself, and then started to laugh, too. Their fighting came to a halt as the two of them chuckled, smiles evident on their faces while the onlookers glances at each other in confusion.

"Uh, Boss?" Blackwall hazarded.

It was if no one had spoken. "I'm sorry about that, Darrian," Kaaras said, lowering his staff. "I didn't really want to go so hard on you so quickly, you're a great warrior and you deserve better than that."

"Oh please, I should be the one apologizing," Darrian said, waving the words away. "This place is really lovely and you've been so nice, I was holding back too. I didn't want to destroy the fortress you have built up here."

"Wait a second you weren't being serious with that fight?!" Varric yelled.

They continued. "But I think to show true respect to your opponent, you give it all you have," Kaaras said. His staff crackled, and the mark on his hand began glowing with its eerie, sickening green light. "To show how deeply rooted you are in the fight." The ground began to crack further, spilling green light forward and the air was shimmering around him, almost _ripping_ like old fabric—

"Oh no," whispered Cassandra, eyes wide.

"Oh absolutely," Darrian agreed, Starfang shimmering as he gripped the hilt tighter. "Let's try again, shall we?"

Just then his appearance rippled, like water. The color of his armor darkened into a deep, glossy black like polished obsidian, while the image of a dragon's head in deep red appeared on his chest. The helmet grew jet-black wings and Starfang changed shape too, becoming narrower, the blade curving while a blue light of design appeared on it—

"So _that's_ how he hid Vigilance after it was stolen, no one's ever gonna believe this," Varric muttered to himself while Blackwall moaned, " _Please_ tell me that armor is not what I think it is."

"The armor of the one who slew Dumat? Oh yes." Darrian chuckled and then he disappeared.

A blur of movement raced across the space between them, stopping to become visible only as Darrian again when Kaaras disappeared in a flash of green light, a miniature rift the only trace of what happened to him. Darrian spun around, too fast to follow as Kaaras emerged in a flash of light, shooting Fade energy in front of him that warped the air and for a moment up and down and the sky was below everyone's feet and—

Darrian charged through the green light, fragmenting it into pieces and Kaaras jumped again and again, barely able to stay ahead of the Warden who seemed to always know where he would appear next.

And then suddenly everything stopped. Kaaras was stepping out of a rift with Tempest pointed at the back of Darrian's helmet, the skull glowing green. All was silent.

Kaaras laughed softly and dropped his head, and then his staff. "That was amazing," he said over the surprised gasps as he offered his hand. "Great match, Warden Commander."

Darrian took off his helmet with a smile and shook his hand warmly. "You almost got me there, Inquisitor," he said with a laugh. "I'll admit I think only my training at the Crossroads with Morrigan saved me this time."

"What—" Cassandra asked before she saw it. A tiny cut on Kaaras's cheek only just now starting to bleed. Except she couldn't even imagine when it had happened, she never even saw Darrian swinging his sword, or really moving at all, and Kaaras was always a step ahead—!

Tears filled her eyes at the sight, though. Kaaras even in defeat was so noble, so pure and honest, having a deep respect for his opponent that no one else could have. He was such a _perfect_ Inquisitor, a perfect man and—

"Yesss!" Morrigan squealed, breaking the resilience as she jumped into the air. "I told you so, Seeker!"

Just like that the serenity was broken and Cassandra whirled upon Morrigan, their argument starting up once more.

Varric closed his journal, chuckling as some people came forward to help dig Alistair out. "This is going to _dominate_ all of my past books by far," he whispered to himself, rubbing his hands in glee.

"Actually, Darrian," Morrigan said, for once not responding to Cass's retort as she sidled forward. "I have an idea for us to do later."

"Oh?" Darrian replied.

"As do I!" Cassandra declared, shoving Morrigan aside and latching onto Kaaras. "You're very inspiring, after all, Inquisitor."

Somewhere, Sera made a face and an exaggerated retching noise at the sight.


	10. Reminiscing and Reunions

"That was _amazing!"_ Blackwall was in the middle of saying for the ninth time as they were all heading inside. It was starting to get just a _little_ annoying, but really Varric had never seen the stoic Blackwall get so worked up about _anything_ before this so he was busy enjoying it while it lasted. "Can you believe it? The real Sentinel Armor! It's supposed to be just a legend! Why if I went back to the Wardens right now and said just that and nothing else they'd call me a lying asshole!"

"They so would!" Alistair agreed, the only bit of the conversation that seemed to bring him any modicum of cheer as he was still trying to recover from the humiliation of being slam dunked into the ground. Thankfully everyone around him was just sympathetic, while those who would have made fun of him were too busy gawking over what they had just seen to really pay attention to Alistair. "But after they throw you out of Weisshaupt and tell you to stop jerking them around with nonsensical stories, they'll send a Warden to Skyhold. For some type of 'official report' or something but we'll all know why they're here."

Of course everyone else was heading to the only place one would go after watching such a good fight: the tavern.

"You're daft mate, Quizzy had 'im on the run the whole time!" Sera was yelling to Oghren, the center of a slowly moving group of bickering sideliners.

"Yeah, running _toward_ him ya dumb blond!" Oghren said with a derisive snort. "I know you need to get yer pretty little eyes checked, so lemme tell you what went down. Darrian was chargin' 'im, and he was zappin' away like a little girl!"

"Want to amend that little girl statement, Oghren?" Scout Harding spoke up for once, so quiet and elusive that everyone gave a little jump at her suddenly being there.

Oghren gave her a dispassionate look. "Sure thing," he said and puffed up. Then he roared: "He was zappin' away like a little _sissy_ girl!"

The party was going on full blast in the tavern, drowning out the scuffle that inevitably broke out between Oghren and his group of slowly growing haters, and Varric managed to sneak into his usual spot with little trouble. In the corner, a little shadowed, watching and observing everything for later use. He flipped open his book again and started writing once more, trying to scribble everything down as fast as possible while the fight was still fresh in his memory (he had been taking notes at the time but he kept getting distracted by the awesome display and by having to dodge wayward magic) before it could all fade away. He knew as time went on it would either get dulled or even his own head would exaggerate what happened, leading him to exaggerate _improperly_ when the time came to retell it.

Someone sliding into the chair next to him made him glance up, mostly out of habit than anything, and he froze at the sight of Solas's stick frame cobbled awkwardly into the confines of the chair. What fresh hell was this? Solas in a place like _this?_ Was he going insane?

Solas leaned forward, his eyes flicking down to his open journal briefly, before he gave a small, enigmatic smile to Varric. Others were filling the seats around them while some were listening and cheering at the scuffle just outside, but Varric could not have noticed anything less. "Good evening, Varric," Solas said, stiff and polite as ever. "Forgive my rudeness, but I cannot help but be entranced by whatever letters you're writing upon that paper. They're most fascinating and simple, yet I presume they make some sort of sense?"

Varric glanced down at the journal, again more out of habit, and smiled. Pride welled up in him, dwarven pride as Bartrand would say, but to Varric it was just journalistic pride. "Of course they do, Chuckles. They're letters, the same as anyone writes." Of course to anyone who looked his writings would have just looked like scribbles, like he had let a child hold his book for a while, but he liked the air of mystery he had when he was obviously interpreting them to mean something. "It's a dwarven thing. In Orzammar it's called gold-speech, as it's usually only used during business deals and court cases, but topside it's just called shorthand. If you master it, you can write as quickly as a person speaks."

A raised brow at that. Aha, that got the elf's admiration, even though Varric knew Solas would start eating nug before he outright admitted any of it. "How interesting," Solas commented, which was _worlds_ bigger than Varric knew the words themselves were, and quashed down the urge to grin like a madman at Solas's very clearly hidden compliment.

Varric opened his mouth to say something, perhaps a polite and yet subtle bragging about the deeper intricacies of the history of how shorthand about that he knew Solas (the nerd that he was) would absolutely _love,_ when Oghren and Harding banged the door to the tavern open, singing and yelling about how they both needed some ale after such a row. Oghren's right eye was swelling shut and Varric knew after many nights in The Hanged Man that he would have a truly magnificent black eye by tomorrow, and half of Harding's face was covered in blood by some kind of cut that kept dripping. With how she waved away protests and gasps it couldn't have been very serious, and Varric knew that even shallow head wounds tended to bleed quite a lot so he figured that just some bandages would fix everything.

What he couldn't imagine though was why they now seemed to be so cheerful with one another. Dwarves were so damned _weird_ sometimes.

"So wasn't that just _so_ fucking cool when Darrian shifted his armor like that?" Bull roared, thumping down about a dozen drinks that her held clutched in his gigantic hands on the table with his Chargers. "I need to learn how to do that! That would be so useful in battle!"

"It's _magic,_ Boss," Krem said with a snort as he reached for the biggest mug. "You'll be about as successful as trying to grow a pair of tits."

Alistair laughed so hard he snorted ale up his nose, and then immediate began alternatively choking and whimpering as it burned his sinuses, and Dalish took some pity on him by briefly touching his face, her fingertips glowing with magic. Sera was cackling and rocking back and forth in her chair up to the point where Varric was sure she was about to fall over, and Blackwall simply reached for a mug and began chugging. Maker these people could _drink._

"You know," he thought, his mind turning back to the fight. He meant to say it only to Solas but with how heads began turning to him they had clearly heard and were absolutely in on what he had to say. He cleared his throat and raised his voice louder so they all might hear. "It'd be interesting to see a more evenly matched fight, like between the Inquisitor and Hawke having a duel. Since they're both mages it'd be really interesting to see how that would play out."

There was a round of "oooh"s from the table, interesting lighting up in everyone's eyes at his words. The Champion of Kirkwall was probably the only other person in the entire world who could give Kaaras a decent challenge, even if his exploits in comparison seemed relatively minor compared to single-handedly saving Fereldan from an entire Blight and closing a rift in the fabric of space itself with a demigod as an enemy.

But Hawke had always _consistently_ managed to ride out the daily problems in Kirkwall for _seven years_ which was a feat that broke the soul of all but the most hardy of people, all with the smile on his face. He was the other best mage Varric had ever seen in his life and he still didn't know whether he considered Kaaras the more skilled or not. What Kaaras made up for in raw power and control Hawke made up for in pure cleverness and wit, there was _still_ stuff he had seen Hawke do that no mage had ever considered and he was absolutely not about to start blabbing.

"Did Hawke ever do anything really incredible?" Dorian asked almost wistfully over his ale. "Someone else that isn't about the damned Arishok or mage uprising or what have you, those tales are done to death. You had to have seen him do something amazing within all the years you've known him."

Varric chuckled. "Oh dozens! It's hard to pick one!" That wasn't an exaggeration either, see the train of thought above. But from how the others were looking at him, they clearly thought so. Well with his friend's honor and reputation at stake he _had_ to respond! He came with the first thing that came to his mind, admittedly (in private of course) because it was the one time he ever actually came close to really shitting his pants. "Well we were in the Deep Roads looking for...ah Maker I've forgotten it already. I think some kind of gold or maybe some ancient staff Isabela heard about down there, something inane and not really important in the end. Anyway—"

"Knowing Isabela I bet it was a dildo," Bull commented which had everyone shrieking in laughter once more.

Varric _hated_ his life. Why in the hell did he have to learn _now_ that Isabela and Bull knew each other right when she wasn't even around? Maker damn it all. He couldn't let that throw him off now, he had a story to right, but damn if that didn't make him _this_ close to derailing the whole thing. "You know that _would_ have made the trip worth it! Anyways we were walking down this Deep Roads, it was dark as the crack of the Maker's ass down there—" he had to pause at the laughter roaring around the table and continued on before it got too worse "—but Hawke was lighting the way with his staff! Merrill was too and to be fair she was much better at it than Hawke, but don't tell him I said that." He gave a wink, then launched into the next part of his story.

"And there we are, all trotting for who knows how many miles down there with an old map to give us directions. Isabela was reading it, and let's just say for all intents and purposes she's probably much better at navigating at sea or in a bedroom than on land. It also didn't help that the map she was using was meant for _above ground use_ and it was her bright idea to go into the Deep Roads because 'the treasure is buried and the Deep Roads are underground so clearly we can find it there!'"

"Surfacers, all that sun and wind made them stupid," Oghren muttered into his eighth ale. One of his moustaches was inside of his mug, but of course he did not notice a thing even with Harding giving him openly disgusted looks.

"Then the _skittering_ came!" Varric hissed out, letting his teeth clack on the word and the air to escape his lips in a vicious hiss that had his listeners now straightening up. "At first in front, something tiny, almost like a rat, but there's no rat who'd last more than a day down there without becoming the snack of some deepstalker. But then it was _everywhere._ All at once a hissing, clacking and snarling noise from all around us, every angle, even from _above,_ and that was the only warning we had before _boom!_ The darkspawn descended upon us!" He threw up his hands dramatically.

Blackwall snorted at them. "Ya bunch of daft idiots what the hell were you doing down there without a Warden?"

"In our defense we tried to get Anders to come with us, but he said he was helping a group of mages escape the Tower that night which was 'more important than treasure hunting in the blighted Deep Roads' according to him. Not that I blame him. We barely had time to whip out our weapons before they were on us, and with two mages in the group and Bianca we were actually making pretty short work of them. Then Merrill got too far ahead, and then suddenly there were three ogres surrounding her. Three! Slobbering fangs, horns the size of a horse! All three at once!" He took a long drag of his ale.

"Well? What happened!" Sera demanded, thumping the legs of her chair impatiently against the floor. "Ya just draggin' it out Varric!" She scowled fiercely at him, but a pat on the arm from Dagna softened her demeanor considerably and she turned to nuzzle the little dwarf while Varric wiped his lips.

Had to write something like that later. An elf and dwarf, both women. No one would expect it. "Merrill was going to make a valiant effort to defend herself and to be fair I think he could have taken out at least one of them, but you could see it in her face. The terror, the desperation. She knew. And then I am throw flat on my ass as Hawke _charges_ forward, this blue energy just...surrounding him! Like clouds, scorching the ground underneath his feet, the smell of frying blood and taint and stone in the air—it's an awful smell but the glow in his eyes made everything so much more terrifying. It was the only thing I could see under his mask, this blue glow through the eye holes and by the Maker I think even the archon would have had a heart attack seeing him like that. His robes were flapping everywhere like crazy, all red and dancing with the blue light.

"I don't know what he did but he was suddenly next to Merrill and he swung his staff, this beautiful staff that had a chunk of blue crystal on the top where everything was coming from, and this beautiful wave of blue comes flying out of it, like the wave of the ocean. And the second it touches the ogres you can see their flesh _vaporizing,_ and the force of it threw them all back! All three ogres at once, thrown right into the air and dead as doornails before they even hit the ground!"

"Holy shit," Bull muttered, his ale forgotten in his amazing.

"Varric if this is one of your tales then—"

"I _swear_ it's not!" Varric cut Alistair off, waving his arms. "If I wanted to make up some bullshit my story would have been three times as long with Hawke doing some crazy jumps and swinging off the ogres' horns. I'm telling you this one is true, I mean it."

"I don't know if that beats the Sentinel armor, though," Blackwall said, admiration clear in his tone. "The fact that this even _exists_ is incredible! And Darrian can use its power so easily! He was like a demon out there, like he was crazed!" Yet his voice held none of the fear that his words might have had if anyone else used them.

Oghren gave a little snort. "He did follow Morrigan and chase her through some kind of weird magic mirror. Never quite came back the same. But I ain't never seen that armor but once, and he wasn't even wearin' it. But all the Commander said was someone would have to give up his own soul to be able to wield a power like the one it possessed." He gulped into his drink, almost dramatic as Varric.

Blackwall narrowed his eyes. "Nonsense, the Warden-Commander knows well enough about darkness and the taint to be able to be corrupted by such a thing. He's too powerful and noble."

"I don't know about that," Alistair interjected. "I saw what happened with Darrian when we first met a Broodmother," Alistair said, and then his face went into a mask of shock. The "I-shouldn't-have-said –that" kind.

Smelling blood, everyone closed in. "And what're those?" Sera asked, propping her elbow on the table.

"Kid, that might not be a good one to talk about," Oghren cut in, his voice surprisingly serious.

But that only made it worse. And of course under the pressure, Alistair crumpled. He told them in words as brief as possible about Broodmothers, and vague details about how they were created (which was still enough for Sera to freak out and leap out of her chair to "toast the little bastards in their holes with every flame concoction she had") and about their fight with one. "He was...scary, I had never seen him like that before. Even _Morrigan_ was terrified of him. She just had no idea how to handle him after the fight was done, he kept hacking the Broodmother's dead body until we had to drag him away from it. And he wasn't the same afterwards...it was like something in him broke a little." He shook his head. "Darrian isn't immune to demons or rage, none of us are, but Morrigan is dangerous, and the magic she does is dangerous. I'm worried about what happened to him after he followed her into...wherever they went."

There was a quiet after his words, the mood of the tavern descending into melancholy. Varric didn't feel quite so drunk anymore, and he hated it. Damn it why did they have to do this to each other?

Then, thank the Maker he ever decided to create this freakishly huge, beefy qunari who always had to walk sideways through doors so his horns wouldn't catch, Bull looked around and grinned. He took a chug of ale and said: "Alistair, why haven't you cleaned yourself up after all the horseshit?"

Alistair looked utterly mortified and went a true red, while the table exploded into much-needed laughter. Alistair tilted his head back ad simply downed his ale, drinking and drinking. Evidently resigned to his fate.

"There ya go kid!" Oghren yelled, thumping his mug against the table loudly and sloshing beer everywhere.

"Oghren for crying out loud—!"

"What're you gonna do about it! Cry?"

Seeing clearly that the focus was rapidly shifting somewhere else, Alistair made his hasty exit from his group to slide in the other chair next to Varric. The dwarf wrinkled his nose, but Alistair didn't seem to notice. "So Varric, I have a question I wanted to ask you," he murmured, his voice low and serious enough that Varric knew it wasn't going to be one of his usual dumb remarks. "Was Kaaras _always_ able to make rifts like that?"

Varric's stomach did a flop. "No," he said, worrying at his quill from the implications. "Heck when we first met him he had a hard time keeping it under control so it wouldn't randomly explode and hit us all with a burst of Fade magic."

Solas's gaze was serious and dark, yet there seemed to be more intrigue there than there was concern. "It's interesting, isn't it?" he said, sipping his tea. "How the world is supposed to trust two heroes who use darkness so freely and frequently."

—-

"Aww Cass it's just a little cut, I can—"

"No, I'll take care of it!" Cassandra said, holding Kaaras still in the chair as she dabbed a cloth against his cheek with the utmost gentleness. So gentle to almost be absurd even, with how minor of a wound it was. It wouldn't even scare, and she had to admire the utter precision and care Darrian had to use even in the heat of the moment in order for that to happen.

His arms went around her waist, hugging her close to him. She sighed and melted into the touch, cradling his head and not minding in the slightest how he was clearly pressing into her breasts. "That fight out there was beautiful, my love" she said, "but I'll never ask you to do such a thing again." She sighed and ran her fingers through his hair.

"Mm? Why not?" Kaaras asked, raising his head to look at her. "Not that I'm super eager to fight the Warden-Commander again, but I don't think that's the real reason here."

Cassandra sighed again and went back to fixing his cut, his arms still around her as she bandaged it and used a sticky herbal paste to hold it in place. "What you both did out there was frightening, Kaaras. I don't think the anchor is supposed to be used in such a dangerous way. Who know what could happen...?" She shook her head after a moment, bitterness welling up inside of her. "And yet we have to use it anyway to defeat Corypheus. But everything in me wants you not to. I could never ask you to take on the powers the Warden-Commander now has, even if everything is at stake."

Kaaras looked down at his hands. One smooth and unmarred. The other slashed with the strange, glistening green sheen that the mark took on when it wasn't being used or reacting to anything nearby. It swirled and writhed and seemed to change shape before their eyes, even though with every blink it resumed its former position. "I think it's already too late for that," he whispered, flexing his fingers.

—-

"Mmm, blindfolds huh?" Darrian said with a grin as Morrigan did the final knot to keep the fabric in place on his head. She hadn't tied him to his chair yet, which was rather funny because that was usually what was supposed to be done _first,_ but he wasn't complaining. But Morrigan clearly had something up her sleeve and her creativity was second to one, so he was sure he would enjoy it. "Haven't done this one in a while."

"Indeed," Morrigan said mysteriously, opening a door. Why was she doing that?

"Reminds me of that time in the Frostback Mountains. Remember how we were in our tent and it was so cold, so we had to—"

"Darrian." Her voice was teasing and playful, and he was cutting him off before he could go further. Oh, _impatient_ she was. This was going to be spicy, wasn't it?

"Yes?" he asked, smiling.

Then she untied the blindfold. That was about the last thing he expected, the cloth to fall away from his face and for the light to be shining in his eyes once more, but he quickly recovered and blinked the dots away, only to see someone new standing in front of him. A young boy with dark hair and eyes that stared right up at him, wide in their excitement and shock. The sight of him hit Darrian right in the chest, and he felt himself freeze. Oh, oh, Morrigan you sneaky, sneaky woman.

It was Kieran who reacted first. "Daddy?" he said, taking the first steps forward, unable to control himself.

Darrian was out of the chair in an instant, holding his arms out for his son, who ran into them and held him just as tightly as Darrian was holding him. He was so warm and gentle, _his son_ who he hadn't seen for so long since he started on his journey to stop the Calling. Such a moment of peace and serenity, everything he loved in one small space, one room, and he felt the worries falling away from his shoulders like old, battered armor.

In the doorway, Morrigan lingered and watched, a smile upon her face as she watched the reunion of father and son. And then, unable to help herself, she joined them, resting one hand on Darrian's shoulder and one on Kieran's head as she brought them close to her and held them as well.


	11. Touching Envy

"And you've both been here for how long?" Darrian asked, opening his cloak and wrapping it around Kieran as the chilled Frostback winds tugged at their clothes from the top of Skyhold's walls. Up here they could easily see the soldiers of the Inquisition going about their daily business, entirely oblivious to the three pairs of eyes that watched them from above. "You know this place and these people far too well for it to be anytime recent."

Morrigan gave a noise that she probably thought was properly offended, except she was still as bad of an actor as ever about hiding her emotions. Really, how she survived playing the Game for so long was only known to the Maker at this point. Darrian suspected it might have something to do with Morrigan simply cursing anyone she felt was too dangerous to her, she was far better at casting magic with people being none the wiser than she was at feigning anger or surprise or any other social interactions which—to be fair—were rather stunted by her growing up in the middle of a swamp with no one but her mother for company. "I am a fast learner," she said with a little wave of her hand, as if brushing away a fly. "I always was. I can't believe that hasn't sunken in by now."

Her tone was playful, though. The special levity reserved for Darrian and Darrian only. The first time he had heard her speak like that he had been floored and wanted nothing more than to hear her speak like that all the time. Darrian smiled at her roguishly and leaned closer to her, his hands on Kieran's (his _son's)_ shoulders and said, "So, how long?"

The witch made a noise, something between what Cassandra liked to make when she was disgusted and Morrigan's own personal brand of annoyance. "Two weeks, almost three, if I recall correctly." This she also spoke with a hint of levity and brushing, although Darrian would have bet that even Alistair would have been able to pick up on the sharpness of her tone. Like an unsheathed dagger. A challenge wrapped in her words, boldly displayed and daring him to say something about it.

Of course Darrian wasn't going to pick up her gauntlet, that was always playing right into her hands, but he simply couldn't just brush it aside either. That was weakness. A balance always had to be attained with Morrigan: firm but not unyielding, understanding without being too sensitive. "Nearly three weeks spent in a strange castle, away from where I last knew you to be, and you just now thought of writing?" he asked with a forced calm. He did not even need to inject anything into his tone, his annoyance and offense (not _hurt,_ no, but its more tempermental cousin) was more than clear.

She snorted, too forced. She knew she had done wrong and was digging in her heels to justify it. "What, I should tell you every little time I go somewhere? Should I leave a note, then, every time I go to the marketplace? Must I inform you of my activites before I leave my rooms?"

Darrian chuckled. "You, in a marketplace on your own free will? Hardly." It was not truly the time for jokes, but a soft statement could go a long way with Morrigan's anger.

Her lips twitched. "If you will kindly recall I spent much time as a child—"

"Yes, yes, spying on humans in their towns and markets, committed an act of theft while you were at it. That was when you were young, though. Now every time I take you to a market you won't stop complaining about the filth and noise of the city."

"Take me to a better market, then."

"The only market you would find interesting is in the middle of the Kocari Wilds," Darrian quipped. Then, before the conversation could spiral too out of hand, he said: "You wrote every time you stayed in one place for more than a few days. Months could go by without word, but I knew you were safe and on the move so I didn't question it. I was surprised to get the letter from Orlais, but I was sure you knew what you were doing when integrating yourself into the court. I heard of the assassination attempt and the Inquisition and the fight, but I assumed that while you had been involved and no doubt provided an invaluable help, you were staying in the shadows as you always did."

Kieran did nothing but watch and listen. Darrian might have forgotten about him if he hadn't been acutely, intensely aware of his attention with every second that passed, like how he could always feel the gaze of darkspawn upon him even when he wasn't looking directly at them. Not the his son was darkspawn by any stretch (he had bothered Morrigan dozens of times about it and she had answered with increasing annoyance that she would _not_ being giving birth to a darkspawn did he think she was an _idiot_ ) but the weight of his gaze and attention pulled at his very being in an eerily similar fashion.

Morrigan frowned, her delicate brows pinching together (she clearly started to darken them with charcoal like all the court ladies and she would hit him if he pointed it out but that was just _hilarious_ ) and gave a small exhale through her nose. "That was my original intention, actually," she said, her voice a reluctant grumble that let him know that was the truth more than anything else. "I had intended to nudge the Inquisitor in the right direction, watch it all unfold the way I wished while sipping champagne in the corners, and then let him and his stampede of an organization go off to stampede somewhere else. But things got much more...complicated than I expected them to."

"I understand that," Darrian said gently, conceding a little. Not to let it down _too much_ but every bit of softness, of give from Morrigan had to be responded to in kind or else her anger would snap that rare gentleness shut like a steel trap. "But that did not stop you from writing."

She sighed. A resigned one. "I know. And you know I also like my independence very much. At first I did not see fit to write because I did not think my stay here would be very prolonged, and I thought even if it was I was still safe so you did not need to know." She shook her head. "I delayed, thinking I had more important things to do in my spare time, until the time came to write you. I am sorry necessity forced my hand, rather than desire."

And an apology from Morrigan was like Orzammar admitting that hey, maybe the surface dwarves weren't all _that_ bad. Darrian smiled, and then reached over to wrap his arm around her shoulder and pull her closer before she could protest. "I forgive you," he said and pressed a kiss to her temple. Now, to soften the rawness that had just been scraped away. "Hey, better than the time you ran away after we killed the Archdemon and I had to actually go hunt you down."

Morrigan rolled her eyes with a groan of laughter. "Oh stop it, you idiotic man!" she said, chuckling and giving him a light shove. "Truly, why I let you in that eluvian in the first place is beyond me."

"What, you were going to say no to this face?" Darrian quipped, giving her a grin and leaning forward to kiss her. It was like coming home; his home was wherever Morrigan was, wherever Kieran was.

Speaking of, he had not spoken at all during their exchange, so when his voice finally did speak up that both gave a little start of surprise. "So are you two no longer mad at each other?"

There was a moment of surprise where they both had to register what Kieran was saying, the brain simply refusing to accept the words, before the gravity of it set in. "Oh we—" Darrian tried to say.

"Kieran, dear boy—" Morrigan said at exactly the same time.

"Your mother and I—"

"You father and I—"

"-we aren't _angry_ at each other—"

"—what a silly thought you have, we were just talking—"

"—there's no way, your mother and I love each other—"

"—and if I was really angry he'd _know_ it—"

"—dear really that isn't a good thing to say to a child—"

"—oh yes and we should mine our true thoughts from them because they are too silly to handle it, shouldn't we?"

Kieran watched them stumbling over each other, giggling a little at the end of it which stopped at the both of them giving each other tiny, harmless little glares. "I missed having you both around," he said quietly, leaning back under Darrian's cloak. "I was always wondering when you were coming back."

Darrian put and arm around him and smiled, sharing a look with Morrigan. The three of them together, standing like this with only the sky above them, it was like... _Remember that time in the Dales when all three of us were under the stars, pointing the constellations?_

 _Yes,_ Morrigan said with a proud smile. _Kieran already knew so many of them. He's always been so intelligent._

There was a warmth spreading through his chest, one that raced along his veins to his very fingertips. Pride. _And then after we put him to bed we—_

A laugh in his mind, colored maroon from the memory. _Oh stop it, you silly man._

—

"Thank the Maker and all his little heavenly choir boys, that took _forever,"_ Alistair's muffled groan came through the towel he was currently rubbing vigorously through his hair. "I went through nearly an entire bar of soap before I stopped smelling horse crap everywhere. I think my skin is going to curdle off from all the scrubbing."

Varric tried very hard to imprint the appearance of this particular towel in his memory, just so he knew to avoid it during any and all other times he went to bathe. Maybe to just burn it, so some poor soul wouldn't have to suffer the ignorance of not knowing where that towel had been and then rubbing themselves all over...and yet the potential of its future use on someone—no, better to someone steal it. Wearing thick leather gloves, of course. He snorted. "'Horse crap,'" he repeated, taking his stein and opening the lid to quaff at the beautiful, frothy goodness underneath. "You would be right up in that heavenly choir, boy, with that attitude. You and Sebastian both."

Alistair gave him a look. It was a very Kingly look and _almost_ enough to make Varric freeze in place as if he was five-years old again with Bartrand catching him with his hand in the cookie jar, but thankfully Alistair's damp hair sticking out in every single direction imaginable ruined the effect very deeply. In fact Varric tried hard not to laugh and look properly chastised so Alistair would not launch across the table and throttle him. "I am hardly younger than you, Varric," he said, setting the towel aside. "I am not a 'boy' by any stretch of the term."

"And yet you still look like that," Bull said, pointing one giant sausage-sized finger at Alistair's face. "One day some Vints will come raiding your castle to find that blood mage you have stashed in one of your closets to keep you looking young."

"Please, Bull, if you're going to jest at least make it _funny."_

"Someone's upset at getting dunked in horse shit, I see."

"You know what I find weird?" Varric said, loudly, popping the bubble of rising tension before Alistair could break it himself. He knew the kid put up with a lot in his life but he still was a king and everyone had a breaking point, even the most patient of saints. Okay maybe not Sebastian but _still;_ not to mention Varric was just certain he had never managed to find what exactly set Sebastian off, murdered family members not counting because really only the Merchants' Guild was that cold. "How in the world can the King of Fereldan can get away with being away from his country and royal duties for so long. What did you do, sneak out or something?"

Alistair snorted. "And you know what I find funny?" He threw out his arms. "How in the world do we always end up _in here? Drinking?_ What is this, the third or fourth time we've ended up in here? I think I've spent half my visit in this chair."

Iron Bull grinned at him over the lip of his mug. "Nice deflection. Does that usually work on people who ask you questions you're uncomfortable with?"

A somewhat dramatic sigh, followed by Alistair plopping his rather handsomely sculpted chin into the palm of his hand. "Oh, _all the time,_ actually. Immediately gets Eamon off my back, although Darrian and Morrigan never really let it go. It also just stops people from asking things in general."

"What, you're a king and you're that bad at dealing with questions you don't like to hear?"

"Not _personal_ ones!"

"Doesn't work on me, chump," Iron Bull said, giving Alistair a light slap on the shoulder that nearly sent him headbutting against the table. "At least tell me that Fereldan soldiers won't come marching up the mountains to pound on the front gates and demand that their king be returned to them"

"Oh don't you worry about that, I left a little note explaining that I'd be back before bedtime," Alistair said flippantly, grinning a little. "Can't go running off so long that you miss your sleep schedule. How else am I supposed to plan my before bed cheese?"

Varric was having a hard time not laughing. "Do you make all these up as you go, Peaches?"

"Of course I do! That's me, the talented and witty rebuttal master! Serves great when dealing with the Bannorn."

Maker damn it all deciphering centuries old runes from Paragon Seuss's time would be an easier challenge than having to pick out the threads of half-truths and lies from Alistair's commentary. He might have to dedicated a whole separate book to this nonsense because this was going to bog down his novel of the Inquisition _way_ too much. Alistair was a companion of the Warden, after all, and King Maric's bastard son who rose to become King of Fereldan—really that premise alone deserved its own separate story.

Besides what better way to take revenge on Alistair for all of the nonsense he was making them deal with now than to write a whole book _all about him_ rather than brush him off as a small footnote in the story of the Inquisition? He'd _hate_ all the attention. Yep definitely going with that.

Oh he knew the _perfect_ way to poke at Alistair.

"So," he said somewhat theatrically, "it's been several years since you became King. Still young, but getting older. Have your eye set on any Queens yet? I know there's at least several Antivan princesses who would _jump_ at the chance to—"

"I've already had _several_ bad experiences with women and I'm not that eager to subject myself to that nonsense again. I'll probably just stay a bachelor until my twilight years, and marry some equally old, wise Lady who's probably just as fed up with the whole love nonsense as I am."

The silence that followed that could have made a pin drop sound like being on the receiving end of one of Cullen's trebuchets. Maker's breath with as smart of a mouth as kid had he knew how to shut a conversation _down_ when he _really_ did not want to talk about something. Varric and Bull stared at Alistair, and Alistair stared right back as if daring them to say something else.

The Iron Bull was the one to cough fist and break the silence. A druffalo coughing would have probably been quieter. "Well then, that's that," he said, taking a huge sip from his drink. When it thunked it down the mug was half empty and then he flashed Alistair a grin. "So, king, how big was that Archdemon exactly? And that dragon you fought at Haven. Come on, details!"

"Not this _again,_ Bull," Varric groaned, immediately having to fish for a new, fresh paper. With all the new information he was getting left and right organizing all of them was going to be a nightmare. But there was not _one recorded account_ of what went down on top of Fort Drakon. All the people involved either poofed into thin air or just "didn't wish to talk about it."

Alistair _groaned_ and yep he was one of the latter. "Yes, not _again._ Of all the times I've talked in my life I think this has to be the thing I've repeated the most."

"You like to run your mouth, don't you? What's the problem?"

"Think of it this way, Peaches," Varric cut in before Bull could set anything off. "If you tell your story and get it _published_ and people read it, no one is ever going to pester you about what happened _ever again."_

Alistair gave him a flat look that lasted for all of half a second before he sat up straight. "Alright so we had just fought two ogres in one room, two of the biggest, most monstrous ogres you've ever seen, who were guarding the doors to the top of the roof. Absolute alphas of ogre kind, a horse and rider could have literally jumped between their horns and never touch them, they were so huge. After we killed them and I nearly broke my sword getting through their skin, the roof was open for us. We ran out, and there was fire and blood everywhere. Immediately we almost got hit by the body of some poor bastard that had been flung away. All around us were screams, men in agony as they tried to kill the Archdemon and it just slaughtered them like a bird going through wasps. We—"

 _Huh, what a nice comparison,_ Varric thought vaguely as he wrote as fast as his hand could carry him. _Kid has a talent for words, at least._

—

"I might be staying for longer than I intended," Darrian murmured into her hair, one eye still trained on Kieran as he followed around Harding and asked constant questions about her line of work that the good-natured dwarf happily answered.

Morrigan stirred a little, her eyes narrowing. Normally she might have found joy in the words, but she knew Darrian and his tone enough to know that the reason for his extended stay had nothing to do with them. Something was, as always, afoot. "What has happened?" she asked quietly. Not that it was necessary, there was no one around the eavesdrop, but the occasion still felt as if such a lowering of her voice was needed. "Who is it this time?"

He gave her a look. One that reached into her gut and she knew whatever the next words out of his mouth was, it would not be something she was expecting or good. "The Cult of Andraste has returned," he said solemnly, shaking his head as if he could somehow make the words untrue by the action.

—

"This is _so_ good Alistair, really," Varric said as he thumped down his pages. "You got a real talent for words! I'll make sure this stuff goes to the right people and gets out in no time."

"I except a percentage of the profits, of course," Alistair said promptly and oh ho ho, those lessons in government certainly did not completely go to waste.

Varric gave him a grin. He tied up the Merchant's Guild on a regular basis, he certainly could deal with whoever Alitair sent to negotiate with him. "But of course, kid! Wouldn't do anything less."

"That little bit you mentioned with Morrigan and that darkspawn was really funny," Bull said, chortling. "Kinda like what we have here, except reverse. Boss is the mage and Cassandra is the one with the swords."

"Yeah but I wouldn't dare compare Cassandra and Morrigan to one another, _especially w_ hen both of them might be able to hear you." Not that he would really expect either of them in the tavern, in fact this was probably at the bottom of the list of places he expected them to be in Skyhold, but Varric checked around anyway.

Alistair gave a nod, like some sage listening to a nugget of hard-won wisdom spoken by a man much younger than he. "You're right. Morrigan could be anywhere listening in, or any _thing,_ like a toad."

Maker's breath he had to ask him _what_ was up with him and toads. There was no way that could be normal.

"Aside from hurlocks groping in places they shouldn't even though Morrigan wears little more than a glorified scarf, I got a funny story of _actual_ jealousy for you and not some weird...darkspawn perving in the middle of a battle." Bull leaned forward dramatically. "So there we all were at the Ball and Boss was of course trying to figure out who the assassin was. We didn't really have that much time to play politics, you know. I mean we did of course because Orlais is nothing but a bloody parade of it, but oh man would you believe that one of the worst interferers of it all was Celene herself?"

Alistair _perked up_ like a mabari smelling dog treats and Varric reached for his mug. He needed to be a bit more drunk to start getting into _this_ kind of conversation. "Oh yeah, and as the night went on and more wine was consumed it was definitely getting less subtle."

There was a laugh that Varric felt in his bones from the qunari next to him that the Maker decided, for whatever reason, to build more like a gurn than anything _normal._ "Yep! I bet she had never seen a qunari before, at least not so _close,_ and with how strong and tall he was oh she definitely had the hots for him. Pobably was fanning herself with that pretty little fan just thinking about what he could do to her. After he danced with her cousin she absolutely went up to stake out her claim and Cassandra just about bit through the glass she was drinking wine from."

Varric snorted. "And then she said she wanted to ' _thank him'_ after the whole Ball was said and done with. I heard Cassandra say we should have just let Florianne do her thing and that she was sad we interfered! I thought she was going to go over and kill the empress herself!"

"Oh Maker that's incredible," Alistair said, wiping his eyes through his laughter. "I'm sorry to say though, I have one better."

They both gave him a look, one that needed no interpretation, and Alistair grinned over his mug. "So we were in the Brecilian forest helping the Dalish out with their werewolf problem, and you see there was this spirit—"

"—Oh is this the one with the naked green lady?" Bull asked, sounding like a child on their birthday.

"For the love of—why is that the only part of the story that people remember?" Alistair demanded, throwing up his hands a little.

Bull chuckled. "If you were more successful in your endeavours with women, Alistair, you'd know _exactly_ why."

"Oh _ha ha._ Anyways none of us were really expecting to run across a spirit of all things as the source of the curse, but also _definitely_ not one that was in the form of a naked green Lady. Needless to say Darrian was a bit...floored and probably _more_ than accommodating that he should have been. And the Lady _very much_ wanted Darrian to take her side and she wasn't above flaunting some of her...assets as she made her point."

Varric nearly spat out his drink, ale choking up his throat before he painfully swallowed it down. "Wait wait wait a moment, did she really _flash_ the Hero of Fereldan himself?"

Of course, of _course,_ Alistair blushed and tried to hide it by swallowing some ale which only brought more attention to the fact that he was very clearly trying to hide his blushing. "Well not quite like _that_ but she was absolutely...oh how to put it. Strutting around, giving good...angles to look at and—"

"Struttin' her stuff, you mean," Bull said bluntly, grinning a little with his eye staring at nothing in particular, as if envisioning it for himself. Whatever he was seeing, it was a good one. "If only she hadn't been some weird magic shit, I would have definitely gone along with it."

"I haven't been less surprised by anything in my whole life," Alistair managed with a deadpan that finally made Varric crack into laughter—not at his hilarious antics for once but because he actually made a _joke_ that was funny and not an annoying evade. "But Darrian almost _did,_ you know. I mean he was getting ready to _grope_ and she had her hands—roots—whatever they were on him and it was just about to get _so awkward._ In front of everybody, us, the werewolves, heck I don't know if they wanted an audience or if Darrian was under some kind of spirit hypnosis or whatever—"

"—Doesn't take a spirit messing with your head to make you start thinking with your other head instead, Alistair."

"— _Anyway!_ They were just about to do _something_ and then all of a sudden I hear the most amazing screech I've ever heard in my life. Well at the time I was quite startled because it came out of nowhere but then here comes Morrigan stomping up with her hands on fire and she is so furious, oh this is something I'll remember until the day I die, and it's just so funny how angry she is until she started hurling fireballs left and right. She nearly burned down the whole forest with _us_ still in it. And the werewolves attacked on top of that, too. As if we didn't have enough problems already."

Varric was cackling to himself, filing that bit of information away for later use. Alright time to bring out his guns. "You know, back when I was running around Kirkwall with Hawke we once got into a warehouse that had a cult of—"

Before he would go any further, the tavern hook. The walls trembled, the plates and silverware rattled, and the drinks sloshed in their cups from the force of the enormous roar that shattered the air around them.


	12. Old Sins

Morrigan stared at Darrian, her fine brows frowning over inquisitive eyes that were puzzling out what had just been told to her. He could see her mind working, in that way he had come to love where she would speak and have a plan, or at the very least try to make a plan. Morrigan never allowed herself to lose her head, even when massively overwhelmed or faced with a problem that couldn't be immediately fixed, and always tried to puzzle out a solution before letting any of it affect her. Darrian let her think, she had to. Giving her a huge dump of information all at once would just be disorienting and Morrigan wasn't good at that, it was better to just give her chunks of it at a time.

"How did you find this out?" Morrigan asked, speaking softly and crossing her arms. Her voice was not alarmed, but had that slightly disturbed quality Darrian had learned to identify after years with her. Morrigan did not freak out or lose her head, but her voice did change when she was unsettled. She never raised her voice or acted hysterical or allowed her voice to change, so anyone watching from a distance wouldn't be able to tell the difference.

He never really understood the need for that, everyone was about to find out anyway so why pretend everything was better than it was? The Orlesian Empire was in decline for a good reason. Soon at this rate some place like the Anderfels would rise in power or some other nonsense and then—right right, the cultists. Was best not to get sidetracked.

"I didn't understand what it was, at first," Darrian said calmly, sitting against the railing of the gazebo and playing with one of the leather straps on his gauntlets. He was deep in thought and had to remember what had happened, push past all of the bloodshed and events throughout the years and pull out the memories from his brain, crystal clear and intact.

"Oghren and I would be venturing in the wilderness, hunting darkspawn, or I would be alone, and suddenly we would be attacked. Groups of people, all human. At first I thought they were bandits, but the group members were very specific, well-armed, and far too savage for just a simple robbery. Their motive was clearly for killing, not stealing. Then I thought assassins, but not the Crows. They weren't anything new, of course."

"Of course," Morrigan echoed, even though her voice had dropped into the arctic temperatures. She knew Zevran was dealing with the Crows but _apparently_ she had to expand her influence even farther and remind anyone who wanted to touch her husband precisely what would happen to them if they ever did.

Darrian gave her a reassuring smile and went on, plucking calmly through his memory. "I thought their use of axes was very distinct, and how they fought was different, like some kind of berserker rage, and when I would kill one of them they always became stronger. I thought reavers, but it wasn't until I found an empty vial on one of their dead bodies with dragon's blood inside did I know."

Morrigan nodded a little, her initial surprise fading while her eyes instead showed her mind leaping and looking for any type of information possible. "That doesn't immediately point to the Cult of Andraste, though," she said carefully. "All reavers must consume the blood of a dragon, or those related to dragons, in order to gain their powers."

"Not at all, that's true," Darrian agreed, giving a nod. "But they were all clearly Fereldan, and from the sheer number of them I could only assume they were part of some kind of organization. Only one thing fit the description, so I went back to the Temple of Sacred Ashes."

"What did you find?" Morrigan's voice was soft and probing. "Leliana told me that when the Templars and mages convened there for the Conclave there was no trace of the cult, and apparently before then idiotic sycophants would come in mindless droves to 'pay their respects' to their prophet—"

"Morrigan," Darrian said softly, smiling in amusement. On a normal day listening to her go off on a rant about how stupid she thought the Chantry was incredibly amusing to Darrian, but right now he was in the middle of a very important explanation.

The witch paused, at first anger flashing in her eyes at being interrupted, but then she reigned herself in and nodded. "Please, continue." She was _working_ on that, and it was a work in progress every single day. Only for him, though.

"They've known how to lay low, now," Darrian went on, frowning harder and clearly rummaging through his memories. "We decimated them before because they were very open about it, but now they were hiding deep inside the caverns of the mountains. At first I thought Haven was abandoned, but when I went through the Temple and into the tunnels I could tell there were some people living there. I thought at first maybe bandits, things like that have happened before, but then out of the shadows came one of the reavers, screaming like a Maker-damned despair demon and trying to crack my skull open. That was when I took out my sword and started cleaning up. Basically a repeat of what we did years ago except I was by myself."

"So we missed a few of them?" Morrigan said calmly, nodding to herself. It made sense, Haven had been quite huge and they had not explored each and every tunnel and their surrounding countryside trying to wipe out every ingle one of them there. With how ridiculously concerned everyone had been with the Arl at the time she also could just tell it had not been the priority on their minds at the time. As long as the cultists left them alone they didn't retaliate, instead just moving on to the next part of the complex in their search for the ashes of some dead woman.

Darrian shrugged. "To be fair we didn't kill all of the villagers, especially the ones who weren't reavers. Besides some of them might have seen what was happening and run off into the wilderness and come back later, who knows."

Morrigan nodded again, a soft sigh escaping her lips. "And then?"

"Well his screaming got all the rest of them riled up, and then I was being swarmed by warriors and reavers and insane blood mages from all sides. It was impossible to catch one of them alive, they fought too hard, and when I was down to the last one I managed to knock him to the ground. He tried to slit his own throat but I stopped him and interrogated him." He did not give any details as to what he did to "interrogate" his prisoner, but Morrigan hardly needed to guess with the look she could see in his eyes.

"I demanded where they had come from and what they were planning to do—and just got a bunch of babbling about how they had sprung forth from Andraste's womb to become her warriors to slaughter all Templars, the Chantry, mages, Fereldans, Orlesians, probably even dwarves as well knowing how he was talking. Anything that moved that didn't believe in their Andraste."

"You're still troubled, though," Morrigan noted, her gaze never leaving his face. There was more information that was bothering him, a whole web of tangled thoughts and knowledge that he could pick apart as much as he could but the trouble would still remain.

Darrian sighed and tapped his fingertips against the railing. "He didn't talk as if he was the last one. The way he was referring to them all, it was as if there were more around and I didn't get them all. And he mentioned about their numbers being 'endless' and Andraste's womb being a fountain of eternal life to birth them again and again after they fell."

Vile, disgusting cults. Morrigan sneered and opened her mouth to say something scathing, when a roar shook the sky around them, making the leaves in the garden tremble from the force of the noise. Darrian's head snapped up with hers to look at the sky, except there was nothing in sight on the clear blue field.

"Are dragons known for being around in this area?" Darrian asked, his voice tight.

"No," Morrigan replied, reaching for her staff. "The Inquisition would have driven it off or killed it long ago if it had."

"We need to get to the battlements as soon as possible, then."

—

"Oh this is gonna be so good, so good! Come to papa baby!"

"Bull wait!" Varric yelled, seeing the door to the tavern closed and bull seeming to have no intention of stopping his charge.

Indeed, he did not. Bull slammed full force into the door, ripping it right out of the wall and carrying on forward without breaking his pace while the door still remained stuck to his arm. Varric did not envy the poor soul who had to put it back in place later.

"Oh Maker he's for real, isn't he?" Alistair moaned behind Varric as they ran. "I thought half the stuff they tell about him was exaggerated, or made up."

Varric chuckled despite himself, huffing and puffing as his legs tried to keep up. "T-trust me, I'd think it'd be all bullshit too if I didn't see him myself." He tried to reach for Bianca to unholster her, but he saw the stairs up to the battlements in front of him and reconsidered. These humans never make their stairs small enough to dwarves to get up comfortably...

Alistair took them three at a time, but they still arrived a good several seconds after Bull, who looked like he was about to launch himself over the walls at any second to start running at the airborne figure they could see rapidly approaching on the horizon. "What is it?" he asked the nearest Inquisition soldier who wasn't currently running around like a chicken with his head cut off. Probably because he was a qunari.

"A dragon," the qunari grunted, ignoring Bull's excited hiss. "And a small squadron of soldiers on foot. Coming from the south."

There was a tramp of boots and armor and Kaaras was charging up to join them, Cassandra and Leliana only a step behind him along with most of his other companions behind _them._ "Is it Corypheus?" Kaaras demanded without preamble, coming up to the edge of the battlements and peering out as if by sheer determination he could get a better look of the group that was fast approaching. "He could be unleashing his archdemon on us again."

"Oh for the love of Andraste it's _not_ an archdemon," Alistair groaned, although there was a general aura in the group of no one really paying attention to what he was saying. "I've seen an archdemon, close enough to count all of its pretty little teeth, _and_ I'm a Grey Warden. This is _not_ a Blight."

"He's right," Cullen agreed, just appearing out of nowhere, it seemed, with a Serault spyglass pressed to his face as he peered at the horizon. Sera _shrieked_ with laughter and Vivienne gave him a little smirk and said: "It suits you, dear."

Cullen bore the remarks and snickers with remarkable stoicism, even though his face was deeply flushed, and he went on with a very obvious forced-calm. "It _is_ some kind of dragon, but its appearance differs from Corypheus's red lyrium dragon. And the men and women following it—they're all wearing robes and reports from my scouts say that they're chanting something. They say it sounds like the Chant of Light, but twisted."

"The Chant would make perfect sense," Morrigan's laconic voice drifted over them, proceeding the appearance of her, Darrian, and Kieran a second later as they came up the stairs. Darrian's armor glimmered like silver in the fresh sunlight and the tip of Morrigan's staff was shimmering with cold, dropping numerous flakes of snow behind her as she moved. "That would most likely be the Cult of Andraste, and Andraste herself."

Everyone looked at her as if she had lost her mind, except Alistair and Leliana, the former who let out a huge groan and buried his face into his hands. "Oh not _them,"_ he said, his words muffled behind his gauntlets. Leliana had just gasped, once, before her expression turned icy. Cassandra mouthed the word _"Andraste?"_ while her eyes grew huge in her head.

"Explain," Kaaras said, looking to Morrigan and then Darrian, and finding both their expressions to be completely serious. Perhaps he had expected them to be making some kind of joke, and with the people he was surrounded by in the Inquisition it was not surprising, but when such a thing was not forthcoming his jaw hardened.

Morrigan and Darrian exchanged glances and it was Morrigan who answered, since Kaaras seemed to be addressing her mostly. "Do you not remember the tale of the Warden? When we were looking for the Urn of Sacred Ashes, we ran across a cult of dragon worshippers who regularly murdered and sacrificed people to their 'Andraste,' the dragon. They lived in the village of Haven."

Kaaras's face filled with understanding. "Oh, them," he said, his voice a growl as he turned back around to peer at the approaching group.

"I do not understand," Cassandra said, looking back to Leliana for an explanation, which did not seem to be forthcoming. "The story says you all destroyed the cult before recovering the Urn."

Morrigan glared at her, clearly their rivalry still simmering in her mind, and Darrian rolled his eyes and stepped up to answer instead. "We thought we did, but we were there to find Brother Genitivi and the Urn in order to cure Arl Eamon, not to wipe out the cult. We attacked everyone who attacked us and went on, we could have easily missed a few of them, and we didn't massacre the villagers."

"A damned noble thing to do," Blackwall commented, his voice subdued. "Since they were all in on it."

"Men filled with blood, women filled with rage, rage and tears and blood and anger, vengeance, vengeance. Prayers, whispers: 'Andraste come back, Andraste avenge your children, Andraste who ascended from death, rise again.' Remembering the Wardens, remembering the Urn."

Alistair gave Cole a strange look, as if seeing him for the first time, and then looked around to see if anyone else seemed to be as confused as he was. When Cole was either ignored or grimly understood, he kept silent. He noticed that one had to do a lot of that with the Inquisition, just nod and keep going. He wasn't sure if he liked that or not.

"What I am most puzzled by is how the cultists managed to leash a dragon for themselves," Morrigan went on, frowning. "Unless they might have saved one of Andraste's eggs and raised the hatchling, but it is highly unlikely such a dragon would be tamed no matter how hard they tried. Even Andraste herself was very vicious and aggressive towards them, even though I did not see her attack one of them with my own eyes."

"Dragons can be controlled through the use of blood magic," Cassandra replied grimly. She was wincing every time Morrigan mentioned the name Andraste but was bearing it as stoically as only Cassandra could. "Such a tactic was used in an assassination attempt against Divine Beatrix in 9:22 Dragon."

"The one you stopped?" Varric couldn't help but tease her— _she_ brought it up for once, when was he ever going to hear this again?

"Be quiet, dwarf, before I snap your spine."

The clap of wings slapping the air cut them all off, and again the world shook around them from the force of it. Like thunder, like the slap of a rug being shaken out except a thousand times louder, and it shook in Varric's chest with so much force he had trouble breathing. The shadow of the dragon overhead cast over of all of them and now that it was closer they could see that someone was riding upon her back, but it was impossible to tell any details.

"Who the hell is that?" Varric muttered, trying to squint at them.

"BURN THEM ALL!" the rider screamed. "BURN ALL OF THEM IN THE NAME OF ANDRASTE! PURGE THEM WITH FIRE FOR THEIR CRIMES AGAIST HER. FOR ANDRASTEEEEE!"

"He would give Kolgrim a run for his money, that's for sure," Alistair cracked out, even if it sounded rather forced.

Just then the humor was cut short by the dragon opening her maw and raining fire down upon the battlements, in thick blazing streams of flames or huge globes of fireballs that the dragon would regularly spit out. There were screams from the Inquisition soldiers who saw the fire incoming and all seemed frozen as everyone realized it would take too long for them to get out of the way of the fire, and it would burn them all...

Kaaras moved. His hand blazed like a green torch, and there was the unsettling, awful noise of the Veil ripping apart that had become all too common of a sound to those used to dealing with Rifts, and there was the twisting of the space in front of them. The Rift Kaaras opened was huge, covering all of them like a shield that danced with visions unseen and shadows writhing and melding and breaking apart again, with screams and songs and buzzing echoing a hundred times over from the depths of it. Varric could vaguely see the light of the fires approaching, before suddenly it was gone.

Before he could think about what had happened (and to be honest he didn't even _want_ to know what had just happened) the Rift was closed with a disturbing sucking sound that made his spine tingle. Then Kaaras threw out his arm, his hand invisible behind the sickly green light, and again a Rift opened. It ripped across the air and there was a whoosh of noise, like flapping cloth and rushing air, all tinted with the eerie buzz of the Fade that made his teeth ache. The fire poured out of it, launched right back at the dragon who had to swerve to avoid the attack while giving an enraged roar at them.

As usual, when faced with something incredible and unexpected which—if Varric allowed himself even the slightest bit of analysing thought—would scare the _shit_ out of him, the dwarf had to make a joke. "Now why didn't you try that the last time we fought a dragon? Would have saved me a coat." So Kaaras could apparently just open Rifts at will now. That was now a thing. He needed a drink. He needed twenty drinks.

Waw he surprised that Kaaras did not answer? No he wasn't, but his Boss was starting to reach Aveline levels of frightening and for entirely different reasons than Aveline. Heck Varric would take Aveline over this any day, he'd _move in_ with Aveline even, for the grand total of the ten minutes she would put up with him before throwing him back out on the street again.

"This is ridiculous!" Cassandra protested, her voice tight and high as she brought down her shield, the only one of them who had snapped into action at the attack of the dragon. The metal was still smoking and framed her face in a dark halo that made the light in her eyes glint all the harder as her gaze raked across all of them, as if she could shake them down and wring the answers from them with her stare alone. "We have already killed the ten high dragons across Thedas, how could there be more?"

"You really think that there were only ten dragons?" Morrigan replied, her voice scathing. "Have you searched every inch of the wilds for them? You only know of those ten because ignorant fools told you about them! The next time you find another you'll say that there were only eleven high dragons in Thedas!"

"Oh for the love of the Maker will you _shut up_ for once!" Alistair finally snapped, whirling around to glare at Morrigan. "Why is it that every word out of your mouth is something insulting! How about you try and actually be useful for once?"

"That's rich coming from _you,_ Alistair!"

"Both of you calm down!" Kaaras yelled while the high dragon flew overhead again, before she landed, quite boldly, on the roof of the keep with an enormous creaking noise as the stones groaned in protest to the enormous weight being put on them.

There she stepped around delicately, folding in her wings closer to her body before settling herself quite proudly upon the roof and glaring at them with a great deal of hatred in her eyes. In the piercing daylight her scales glimmered a royal purple, broken only by a large scar slashing across one of her eyes all the way down to her jaw.

Leliana's expression somehow turned even colder, taking on that blankness that made many simply run and hide from her, and she notched an arrow in her bow and pulled it taut. But she did not fire, simply staring the dragon down unflinchingly as if waiting for some signal before she sent it flying.

"Everyone to your battle stations, now," Kaaras ordered, turning to Cullen. "Can you aim our trebuchets at her?" he demanded.

Cullen nodded. "Yes Inquisitor, although I have to warn that we might miss and hit Skyhold instead."

"Do it anyway. But don't fire until I give the order."

Darrian's face was grim and he pointed at the scar. "Look," he said. "That's the one we gave her."

Alistair made a noise somewhere between a groan and a sigh. He seemed caught between some kind of battle pose and standing upright, as if unsure as if he really needed to fight yet or not. "It's how we killed her," he explained to the confused looks. "I cut her under the jaw when she tried to bite us, which brought her head down, and Darrian leaped at her and drove his sword into her eye, then cut down."

"Niiice," Bull said with a grin. "Nice and clean, hate leaving a fight where they get all bloodied up like that. Makes it so hard to save their scales for later."

"Blood magic," Morrigan said immediately. "They used it to reanimate the dragon's dead body."

"You've got to be joking," Alistair said, his voice rising. "Blood magic again! Blood magic for everything! For the Wardens, for Kirkwall, kill a dragon, who cares! We'll just bring it back under our control with blasted _blood magic_ again because blood magic fixes _everything!"_

"Does this mean they can bring it back and we can kill it over and over?" the Iron Bull asked, sounding like he was about to faint at the sheer idea of it.

"Who cares?" Cassandra snarled, drawing her sword. "I've killed high dragons before, and I'll do it again. It's in my bloodline. The Inquisition will show them that no one simply trespasses and attacks Skyhold, and that we are not intimidated by dragons!"

Yeah, these poor suckers had no idea what they had gotten themselves into, trying to attack a place that had Cassandra inside. Varric _almost_ felt sorry for them, but he reminded himself that it was going to be Cassandra attacking someone else for once, so he thought he'd just sit back and enjoy it. Did he have some time to catch some notes? Or maybe he should just go off of memory like he used to do when running around Kirkwall with Hawke. But that produced more...colorful memories, but at the same time he had gotten Kirkwall to fall in love with Hawke long before he had become the Champion, so that was a bonus.

"Well Bianca," he murmured to her, giving her a good pat as he took her from his back, "time to test out that new dragon-slaying rune, hm?"

"We need to go, Kieran," Morrigan said quietly, drawing her arm protectively around her son's shoulders. "A battlefield is no place for a boy, I'll take you somewhere safe and I don't want you to move an inch from there until either Darrian or I come and get you, do you understand?"

"Yes, mummy," Kieran muttered softly and Varric's heart _cracked._ Maker he hated people sometimes, and he hated this world that a child was dragged into such terrible events. He clutched her tightly as she started to guide them, but then when they turned there was a wall of swords pointing at them.

The rest of them jumped and leaped for their weapons, but they were surrounded by a ring of swords and hard faces, all of them devoid of any of the warmth that had been on their faces just moments ago.

Kaaras was surprisingly calm, given the circumstances, just gripping Tempest tighter as he examined their situation. "Cullen," he said with a strange calm. "Where are the troops?"

To answer him, the main gate to Skyhold opened and the squadron of robes troops came pouring through, yelling their victory at the top of their lungs, and to Varric utter shock he saw some of the Inquisition soldiers smirk and leave their positions, and the intruders around them let them. Oh for goodness sake, were they really infiltrated by this crazy cult before they even showed up with their dragon? It explained their boldness but _honestly_ this was just ridiculous. How did one hide a dragon-obsession and drinking blood, after all?

From their position they could see loyal Inquisition soldiers trying to fend off the attacks, but they were scattered and disjointed. It was then obvious just how much the cult members had infiltration he Inquisition as their soldiers were all at key points of the fortress: the doors to the keep, all of the stairways to the battlements, in each guard house, cutting off Skyhold into different sections so each one could be easily picked off before they formed larger groups.

Varric made a grunt as he watched the scene, his gut sinking like a stone. It was less shock and more resigned acceptance that fuelled him, but it would take a lot more than that for him to stop cracking jokes. "Nightingale, you really need to step up your game for this," he murmured, hoisting Bianca up to his shoulder. "Especially with how this tiny force managed to take over this whole fortress."

He wondered how many of them he would be able to take out before Bianca ran out of bolts. Actually, he needed to save that for the high dragon. Maybe Kaaras could just pop open a rift and teleport them somewhere else so they could wreck havoc?

...He couldn't believe he just thought that.


	13. Dragon Hunt (And a Naked Oghren)

"Well Boss," Varric said, grinning a little in his grim resignation. "Any bright ideas? You're great at those. Better than Hawke anyway. Hawke just thought that if he made an explosion big enough it would take care of everything."

Which, to be fair, often _did,_ but Skyhold was not Kirkwall. If they blasted a warship-sized hole in one of the walls, well, that was _their_ problem and _they_ were the people directly responsible for patching it up later.

Kaaras did not answer, which Varric knew was a bad side. Not even able to crack a quick joke, shit.

The qunari's eyes roved around the faces and swords surrounding them, his mind racing as he thought, planned, rejected plans, and thought again. He was fully capable of doing something, he was fully capable of doing _several_ something, really, but the whole problem was managing to finish performing that something before the cultists saw what he was up to and would rush to stop him before he could finish. He had his men around him and could tell his allies to attack in order to slow the cultists down, but it made his stomach churn to think of ordering his friends and soldiers to throw their lives away all for the sake of a plan like that. He needed something else.

"And here you are! Trapped like the wriggling worms you are like you deserve!" a man roared above the crowd, and Kaaras could see him upon the back of the dragon, his voice frighteningly loud even with how far away he was. His hair was black, streaked with silver, and his beard was wild as a thunderstorm attacking his face. But what made him truly intimidating were the long red robes he wore, and the staff he shook as he yelled at them.

This had to be their new "leader." If he wasn't, Kaaras would eat Cole's hat.

"Andraste had risen, above the clutch of death, just as great Kolgrim spoke of to your pathetic, puny minds when you came forward first! She is raised to life once more by her husband, the Maker, to lead her true followers in Thedas once more! Strike her down and she will rise again and again, even stronger than before!"

"Actually, you know, I liked Kolgrim far better," Alistair said conversationally, as if there was _not_ a magically-enhanced vice bombarding them with enough force to shake dust from between the stones of the castle. "He had more... _finesse."_

"Alistair," Leliana said, her musical voice very sharp and cold and somehow Alistair did _not_ flinch at it and Varric wondered how in the world that was even possible. "Perhaps you would actually like to use all the energy you spend on talking and use it for fighting instead?" Her pose was still unwavering, pointing her arrow straight at Andraste and the man upon her, only her mouth moving to show that she had any form of life in her.

"Oh I can easily talk and fight at the same time, as you well know," Alistair said with a bit of a grin. "I did it all the time fighting the arch—"

"AND NOW YOU WILL ALL _BURN._ BURN SLOW, TERRIBLE DEATHS IN YOUR HOLES, BUT THE MAKER WILL NOT SAVE YOU FROM THE FLAMES! _ANDRASTE_ WILL NOT SAVE YOU FROM THE FLAMES! YOU WILL DIE AND—"

 _"ANCESTORS' HOLY TITS CAN A DWARF GET SOME DAMNED SLEEP AROUND HERE?!"_

The mage's voice was cut off by another voice that was just as loud, and yet _not_ magically enhanced, and it predated its owner by only half a second before there was a _roar_ of a battlecry and then he saw Oghren, leaping out of nowhere as if he had just leaped out of a Rift. He was clad in only his underwear, which Kaaras was both surprised and not surprised to see, with his huge, double-handed battleaxe clutched in his hands, before he brought it up in a huge, overheaded slashed that went directly down. The edge caught an unfortunate cultists right in the crown of his head as he turned—and kept going, slashing him completely in half with a magnificent, shocking spray of blood and blood and flesh that made his two halves fall to the side like two halves of a clam, and—

Morrigan _shrieked_ and covered Kieran's eyes, Cassandra gagged, Alistair looked as if he had seen another archdemon awaken, Vivienne swore something in colorful Orlesian and covered her _own_ eyes, Dorian gasped in Tevinter, Bull laughed and shouted "Good damn swing!", and like the epicenter of an explosion, all of the cultists around Oghren screamed and took a leap back.

It was a moment of pure shock and panic and that was all Kaaras needed. "Wall of ice, now!" he shouted, slashing his staff forward.

Thankfully the mages of his company were well-trained and knew how to snap to orders, even Morrigan and Vivienne, and in unison their attacks flowed out in a circle around them, freezing the stones in a thick layer of ice that made them impossible to stand upon without sliding, and then raising sharp, knife-edged icicles from the ground to form a protective barrier.

"Oghren, get behind here now!" Kaaras ordered as the spark icy spikes began rising.

"Go blow yerself, horn-head!" Oghren snapped back, completely ignoring Cassandra's yell. "I got a hangover and some idiot is screaming and waking me up and storming the damn place, AND _NOW THEY'RE PAYIN FOR IT!"_

 _"Oghren you're in your underwear, you'll get turned into dwarf-steak!"_ Alistair yelled back.

Solas threw out his hand while the dwarf didn't budge—in fact he just _charged_ the retreating cultists, and suddenly Oghren's naked body was engulfed in a golden light that seemed—partially solid, in a sense, and with a cry Oghren kept on going. "There, it is a magical armor, it should protect him just as easily as regular armor."

"Huh," Blackwall said as they were now fully surrounded by their walls of protective ice, well over twelve feet high, rings by icy stakes, and even invulnerable to arrows and fire from above while Kaaras would simply use his Rifts to deflect the fire. Completely safe, for the moment. "Why don't mages jus' do that all the time, ten? Seems like they'd die a lot less."

"Knight-Enchanters do that _all_ the time, actually," Vivienne replied primly. "It's a highly specialized field."

"Not to mention it is a _constant_ drain upon your energy," Morrigan said. "Throwing spells and keeping your magical armor up at the same time gets very exhausting very quickly, so it is safer and more logical for most mages to simply keep their enemies as far away as possible with spells, and call up armor only when the soldiers get too close."

They were too busy chatting, and now was not the time. "Cullen," Kaaras snapped, his tone of command jerking them all to attention. "Rally the troops, any that you can who survived the assault _and_ are on our side. Collect them and start a counterassault, they haven't seemed to have breached the keep yet, perhaps the doors are being held by our men. Get in there and find out what's going on, and strike back. Dorrian, Blackwall—"

He pointed and the men came forward, Blackwall grim and Dorian frowning more than Kaaras had ever seen him before. "You both need to get the civilians out of here. Josephine, you can't fight. Leliana, go with them, you're too important to risk out here." She looked as if she was about to argue, but Kaaras cut her off. " _No one_ can do what you can, Leliana, and you must know whoever you have as your replacement isn't at all up to your talents. You can easily defend yourself, but help Josephine. We'll handle the dragon."

Reluctantly, Leliana nodded, looking not at all happy about her orders, but she obeyed, coming to stand by Josephine.

"Solas, Cole, you both take the left from where we are now, kill any and all cultists that you can, in any way you can, nothing is forbidden. Vivienne, Sera, clear the stairs so Cullen, Josephine, and Leliana can get down them. Then help Blackwall and Dorrian get them to safety." He heard Sera groaning, loudly and meant to be heard, about being paired with Vivienne, and he blatantly ignored her. "We work from all three directions, strike back hard and fast and eave no blind spots. If you see someone else in trouble, help them out. Got it?"

They all nodded, their faces grim, but Morrigan stepped forward. "And what shall we do, Inquisitor?" she asked, almost accusatory. "Are the Warden and I useless?"

Kaaras looked to them, and Alistair, who also seemed to be a bit confused as to why he had been left out of the orders. "You are not part of the Inquisition," he said, referring to Darrian and Alistair specifically. "So I cannot command you. Morrigan, I would _dare not_ command you while you have your son to protect."

"What about me, boss?" Iron Bull asked, looking all the more confused and nearly hopping on his feet in his impatience. "Did I get turned into chopped liver?"

Kaaras just chuckled a little. "I knew that if I tried to do anything other than have you take care of that dragon, you'd probably riot."

"Nah! I'm far more disciplined than that!"

Just then, he heard a roar and there was another whoosh of noise. Something flapping, sucking, a whir of air and— _fire!_ He whirled and saw the light of it approaching, and then he noticed that the walls of ice around them were too narrow to let him properly set up a Rift, so he threw his up his staff and called up a normal barrier, praying that it would be enough.

Vivienne joined in, and Solas and Morrigan, and the walls of their ice were _shattered_ by the fireball that blasted into them, before they were melted into streams of water that ran down and steamed from the incredible heat. The shields buckled and Kaaras _yelled,_ forcing them to hold with the strength of his will alone, while the other mages joined in. The heat and force tried to make the barrier fail, and then it mercifully held as the fire died out.

That was close, far too close. Dragonfire was one of the most intense, hardest flames to deflect, and the mage on Andraste's back had clearly enhanced some of her abilities as well from how incredibly strong her fire was.

Darrian's face ad turned hard, expression terrifying. He stepped forward, the sun glinting brightly off his armor like a mirror, and drew his sword. "That dragon is mine," he said, his voice calm and quiet and absolutely certain. As if he was saying the sun was going to rise tomorrow.

Then he leaped over the remains of their icy barrier and somehow did _not_ slip on the ice (damned elves) and stood, tall and proud, looking up at the dragon upon the roof of Skyhold. Then, he took in a deep breath.

" _Andraste!"_ he bellowed, not near to the strength of the mage or Oghren, yet it echoed across the grounds all the same. " _Turn and face me, beast! Come meet your doom once more!"_

Kaaras had never been certain of the intelligence of dragons. No one did, really. They were not as smart as humans, they certainly could not read or write or speak, but they were still extremely clever and cunning creatures and more than capable of solving puzzles and laying traps for their prey. Almost like large cats or horses, or maybe even young children if one wanted to go that far, who were all intelligent and could more than easily recognize faces.

And the dragon clearly recognized the one who had killed her. Kaaras saw her head snap around, fix upon Darrian, and then there was a ripple through the dragon's body. And then the dragon reared back and _screamed,_ and it was a scream unlike anything it had produced before that, so loud that the roof singles nearest to it _shattered_ from the force of it.

Then Andraste leaped off the roof, her wings snapping open and pumping furiously as she fought to remain in the air, sending gusts of wing tearing at them with each flap, and the mage on her back was screaming something and waving his staff, but nothing was happening.

"He's lost control!" Morrigan said, her fingers gripping Kieran's shoulders tightly. "The dragon has gone berserk."

"Good!" Iron Bull said, grinning and heaving up his axe over one shoulder. "It'd be far easier to deal with a wild animal than a dragon that has an intelligence behind its movements."

Darrian said nothing, only waiting for Andraste to dip down and start to lunging for them, before he turned and—jumped right off the walls and into the courtyard below. "Darrian!" Kaaras yelled, and he was not the only one as the Warden disappeared down a twenty-foot drop.

"I'll be fine!" Darrian roared back, and to be fair surviving such a drop in full, heavy armor was a relatively mundane thing compared to what Kaaras had seen him do during the duel, but it was still somehow shocking. "I can only fight her in the grounds, it's the only place with enough room! Go kill the cultists!" And with that he could see Darrian charging the cultists, roaring, before vanishing from sight and appearing again, his armor morphing into the black Sentinel Armor in mid-blink.

"Bull—"

"Right on it, Boss. Anyone who wants to come with me, get behind me now." Bull bent down and hoisted up a—door? What? Where did he get a _door_ and why had he not noticed it before now?

Then with a Qunari battle-cry, he charged, holding the door in front of him like a shield, and barreling through the helpless cultists who were holding the stairs, shoving them from the walls with the sheer force of his charge, will results much less pretty than what had happened to Darrian. Their own swords and shields and bows were utterly useless against the thick oaken door, and Bull kept on going, racing down the stairs, shoving people aside with his sheer weight and strength, plowing through them like a wave upon the sand.

"I'm going," Alistair said grimly, "I've seen that look on Darrian before. I need to make sure he doesn't hurt someone—or himself." He turned to look at the Warden's mabari. "Come on, Barkspawn."

Varric burst out into laughter. " _Don't_ tell me that's the dog's name!" he cackled, while the mabari simply barked in enthusiasm, and then they both took off after Bull.

The cultists had recovered from the shock of Oghren's attack and the fire of the dragon that had hit them after the Inquisition had deflected it, and they squared up to fight again. "Stations, everyone!" Kaaras roared. "Blackwall, Dorian—the stairs, while they're clear! Vivienne, Sera, keep with them and defend the stairs! Everyone else, go!"

They surged, and left him with only Cassandra and Varric at his side, but they were more than enough. He slammed his staff into the ground, calling up rising flames from the stone in a thick wall, and then he _shoved,_ sending the wall careening forward with hungry flames still licking from the source he had created. Through it, crossbow bolts shot, invisible behind the flames right until they pierced through and hit one of their targets, and Cassandra herself charged after that. Shield up, sword high, she yelled in Nevarran until she fell upon the cultists, blood flying with each swing.

Kaaras longed to join her, but he was acutely aware of Morrigan and Kieran behind him, and his job was to _protect_ them, rather than go and kill cultists. He fired ice and lightning in quick, alternating successions, bringing up ice chunks and then hitting them with lightning, blasting them apart and pelting the cultists with icy shrapnel. "You need to get down the stairs," he panted to her while he fought. "The keep is the safest and most defensible position. If—When Cullen gets inside, you need to take Kieran in there."

"I know, Inquisitor," Morrigan said, though her voice held none of her usual scathing tone. She occasionally threw some of her own magic out at their attackers, but it was clear se was far more invested in building up her shields and defenses for Kieran than she was trying to attack. "I will join you when he is safe."

"He will need you to defend him!"

"He is a good boy. Where I put him, all he will need to do is stay there."

Well _that_ was as cryptic as anything Morrigan ever told him, but Kaaras could barely ponder it while one of the many cultists Cassandra couldn't keep track of because she was just _one_ person barreled down upon them, a great hammer in his hands and a cry upon his lips. Kaaras lashed out with fire, which did slow him somewhat, but the light of madness and bloodlust was in his eyes and, despite being on fire, he still kept charging even as his hair and flesh burned.

Kaaras, startled by the lack of caring he saw from the man, tried to ready some other spell that would _immediately_ stop him rather than incapacitate, even though the man was inches from him-

A sword grew out of his chest, finally stopping him, and nearly pierced Kaaras's nose. As it was yanked out Cassandra was there, her eyes only a hint less furious, and she glanced at him.

"Thanks," Kaaras said with a smile, which Cassandra echoed, and behind her shoulder he could see another cultist coming—he tossed a lightning bolt from his hand, hitting the man square in the head, and dropped him immediately. "Got you back!"

Cassandra laughed and twirled around, standing some feet in front of him. "There will be plenty more, Inquisitor," she said. "You are important, and they will come for you, and I will defend you from them!"

"And you can't take them alone!" Kaaras replied, grinning just as widely. "So you will need my magic to help!"

"Oh for the love of the Maker will you two stop being in love for _five_ minutes!" Varric yelled, his rate of fire never once slowing. "The dwarf is amazing, the dwarf is a great shot, but Bianca can't take them all on her own!" To prove his point he shot, and pierced through two cultists, only for two more to clamber over their bodies.

There was a laugh from the both of them and they resumed their attacks, Kaaras using a simple push to throw soldiers off of balance before they could hit Cassandra, while Cassandra bashed and slashed any cultist she saw who was clearly trying to go around her to get to Kaaras. Morrigan had made it halfway down the stairs with Kieran, and was making excellent time as Vivienne and Sera kept them clear by picking off anyone who tried to reclaim them with a combination of magic and arrows.

Cullen and his group had seemed to make it to the steps leading up to the front doors and were fighting their slow, careful way up it. However their odd construction, winding up to the front doors without any railings, was both to their advantage and not, for it allowed them to knock the cultists off easily, but they could just as easily be thrown from them as well.

Especially when Andraste landed herself in the courtyard, shaking the ground under her weight and crushing no few of her own cultists under her feet as she tried to leap upon Darrian in her rage.

Darrian ducked and threw himself forward avoiding her bite, and he slashed up with his sword against her neck, but Andraste pulled back in just enough time to avoid being decapitated and fight ending right them and there. She pulled her head back, and then bathed the area in front of her with hot, intense flames that Bull, Alistair, and Barkspawn all had to split up to avoid, but luckily for them Andraste was not aiming at them, or one of them might have been injured. Her eyes and attention were solely upon Darrian, which Darrian quickly noted and took advantage of as much as possible, yelling insults at the dragon while generally keeping himself as much in her line of sight as possible, playing the bait while the Iron Bull and Alistair rushed at her legs from both sides and attacked.

The edge of Bull's axe sunk into her flesh, as hard as if he was chopping into a tree, but a tree did not react like a dragon did, with a roar and an immediate retaliation. The dragon's head came down and lunged, maw open to snap down upon the qunari, but Bull threw himself to the side and took shelter behind her leg in just enough time for her teeth to snap down on thin air. Then she slashed with her foreclaws, trying to tear him with her wicked talons, and Bull used the force of her muscles to yank his axe free of her flesh, which started pouring smoking dragon blood upon the earth.

Alistair's blade carved another furrow in her scales, his swing precisely aimed at the sensitive, softer skin of the elbows and joints where the skin needed to be softer in order for her to move, and then he ducked out of the way of the instinctive, reactive swipe the leg gave, but the gushed from the wound more freely than Bulls. His cut was deeper, and with how two of her claws did not move, he had severed nerves as well.

Andraste seemed to understand, perhaps a moment late, that taking on fighters who were more expert on the ground, despite how small and puny they were compared to her, was not a good idea. She began to pump her wings again, nearly flattening them to the ground with her beats.

"Stop her!" Darrian roared. "She can't take off!" She would just hover in the air and throw fire at them until the Maker returned to the Black City if she would get up there. He _threw_ himself at a wingtip, somehow _catching_ it, and a vivid memory of poor, doomed Riordan flashed in his mind.

Well, at least this dragon wasn't hundreds of feet up in the air, so if he did fall at the least he could be injured by the fall, but it was still incredibly dangerous.

An upbeat sent him flying up, and he waited until they were at their apex, frozen in a moment of tenseness, before he let go of the wingtip and let his weight and gravity carry him down the whole length of the wing—and stabbed his sword down into the webbing as he went. The skin ripped apart under his blade with a terrible noise that he had nothing to compare to, and blood, more blood than he thought, poured from the wound, coating his hands and very nearly making them slip off the handle of his sword.

Andraste _screamed,_ again, and lunged, trying to bite him again, but he was falling too fast, and her wings were too large to simply get her leg around for him to grab and even though each beat made him slide deeper—it was instinct, and the spasm sent him sprawling right next to the mage sitting in the saddle on her back.

Well, he wondered what their philosophy said about Andraste taking it bareback, if the saddle was required.

"Oghren _don't!"_ Kaaras yelled, holding his staff in both hands and trying to cleave through the men, women, and demons they were summoning with blood magic to reach the dwarf.

"Oghren _yes!"_ the warrior yelled back, his hands never stopping for a moment in his swinging. Men fell before him, yet it was the only way to see him, as they piled so much upon him that the view was blocked. There was no way he was going to stand up against them for very long. His stamina wasn't endless, and the sheer amount of them would overwhelm him eventually, especially since Solas's armor had already failed and Kaaras was trying frantically to substitute for it instead. Except he had no idea how the spell for magical armor worked, so he simply threw up a barrier and—

-winced every time he felt a crash of a weapon against it, and his energy faltered just a little more. Either he would pass out or his shields would fail

Or Oghren could stop charging in like a _madman_ and actually come _back_ so he wouldn't have to waste so much effort in protecting him, but he never thought that such an easy, smart idea would be so hard to bash into the drunkard's thick skull! Damn the amount of bodies he was racking up (which were comparable only to Bull's) this was just going to get them all killed!

"Oghren!" he yelled, trying to put as much commanded in his voice as possible while Cassandra saved him from a sword blow. "Stop!"

"I hear that all the time Inquisitor!" Oghren yelled back without missing a beat. "Trust me, the ladies hate it when you actually stop!"

Kaaras groaned and it was a good thing Oghren wasn't in reach because he would have finally snapped and bashed the stupid dwarf over the head for that joke. The little whirlwind kept going, striking and hitting and yet there were men on top of him, forcing him down—

And Kaaras wasn't _entirely_ sure what happened. All he saw was a dark blur, and then fountains of blood erupting where it passed. Cultists dropping dead in its wake like puppets cut from their strings, crumpling in heaps, and he could even start to see Oghren as they thinned out. The dwarf didn't look happy.

"Oh fer cryin' out loud not _you!"_ he yelled.

"I missed you too, my little short, drunken hog!" sang the figure, who paused, perched atop one of the walls, long enough for Kaaras to finally get a look at him. An elf, with pale blond hair that had been partially braided back, while the rest of its locks flowed freely about his body as he moved. His skin was the tanned golden of the Antivans, interrupted only by the black tattoo across one of his temples, more symbolic than anything. Then the elf cocked his head to one side and grinned, juggling the bloody daggers in his hands. "But no, a hog is too clean for you, Oghren, and smells better! Perhaps a genlock? They are made from dwarves, after all—"

"Go take your stupid, pansy little elf dance and sticks and shove them right up your—"

"Greetings, Inquisitor!" the elf called, waving to Kaaras cheerfully. "I would introduce myself more properly, but I can see you are busy at the moment, so I will leave you with your lovely little lady! And a dwarf! What a threesome!" he cackled, before leaping like a deer off the wall and onto a cultist, both daggers sinking into the man's neck.

If that _wasn't_ Zevran Arainai, then Kaaras was resigning the Inquisition over to Cullen.


	14. The Aftermath

"Is everyone alright? How have the defenses fared? Harding! I need a damage report this moment! Harding, where did you go? This instant I said, there could be more of those damned cultists lurking around and you are all just staring at the dragon!"

"Well Commander, with all due respect, it's a fucking dragon!" one of the Inquisition soldiers shouted back, though it was impossible to tell who precisely he was among the crowd milling about the corpse of the beast.

Cullen's hands went to his hips and his gaze hardened, though it seemed to have little to no effect on his troops. That had to change. "You see dragons practically every other week now!" he said with a dismissive wave of his hand. "You know how it is: the Inquisitor goes out somewhere, miraculously stumbles across a dragon and kills it, and then you all get sent to clean it up later and take anything valuable from it! All of you have seen a dragon before, so enough gawking around and give me a report!"

"We've seen a dead dragon before, Commander, but not a dragon being killed! That was the incredible part!

For the love of—Cullen was on the verge of hitting his men with his own clipboard (or perhaps _himself_ ) when he heard a chuckle nearby and saw the...elf, standing atop a fence post, flipping a dagger into the air and catching it repeatedly. Zevran.

"Ah, Knight-Captain Cullen, still unable to command men without beating them with your sword, hm? Or is it no longer Captain after the whole Kirkwall incident?"

Cullen grit his teeth a little. He knew that Zevran was just trying to rile him up, he had a bit of a talent for that from the very brief moments he saw him, and it was working. But he was better than that man who used to be Knight-Captain to Meredith. At least, he had to believe that. He had to believe he was doing better. "Commander Cullen now, thank you very much," he said icily, trying to sound restrained, above such nonsense.

Zevran grinned. In a way that a parent might, watching their child lie badly. It dug under Cullen's skin even deeper, but the assassin said nothing as he jumped off the fence post and rolled a little as he hit the ground. He was as lithe as a cat, and watching him move was like watching water flow down a bed of stones. A few foolish recruits were even silly enough to "ooh" at him as he came out of his roll on his feet and flipped his hair and—dammit he was going to drag half the hold into bed with him if he would keep this up.

Even the thought of it made Cullen blush, and Zevran was clearly taking advantage of the distraction by slipping through the crowd. "I'd stay and chat more Commander, but I have places to be and so do you! Your little dwarf scout is atop the eastern wall!"

How did he know—? Cullen scowled and, despite himself, glanced over anyway. Damn him. Damn that little—

"Scout Harding!" he bellowed storming over.

—

"Why is it that we always end up here, every single time?" Alistair asked. Though it sounded more like he was talking to his mug rather than anything around him. With the steadily growing wall of mugs in front of him, he would soon have nothing but those to talk to.

Oghren threw back his head and chugged two mugs of ale at once, though half of it seemed to just slosh down his beard and down his body—he still had not put any clothes on, and most were finding it hard pressed to look anywhere else. It was like being witness to a disaster, similar to the Breach, where one wished to look away from the horror, but the eye kept being drawn back regardless.

At least Bull had the common decency to not spill his beer all over his half-naked body when he drank.

"Bartender! I said a quart, not a pint!" he roared, though over the desperate cheering and carousing it didn't seem like he had been heard.

"I mean we always come here after just about anything happens," Alistair continued, either oblivious or uncaring of the fact that no one had yet replied to him. "How in the world have we not drunk this tavern out of all of its ale yet? Do they have some great underground stock somewhere? How did they get it? We're on the top of an insanely inaccessible mountain! What kind of caravans come here, and how often? It can't be that bloody often! Do we make ou own ale? We can barely even grow an herb garden in the courtyard, let alone a field of wheat or barley! And not enough to make barrels of ale! And—"

"Kid, you're overthinking everything. Quit it." Varric mumbled into his notebook as he scribbled furiously, for once his mug untouched, though not for long as Oghren rather boldly swiped it out from under the writer's nose. Varric didn't seem to notice.

Rather than go down the drunken dwarf's gullet, it was quickly snatched out of his hand while an elbow rested right on top of Oghren's fuzzy mop of hair. "Drunken and smelly as ever, my inebriated friend," Zevran said with a charming grin that had probably broken over a score of hearts—and he knew it. He gave the mug a careful sniff. "Hmm, far better than the usual swill you drink, though I'd say it is still nothing compared to brandy! Or even a bit of wine! Is there any to be found here? We certainly can't _all_ be barbarians."

"Who're you calling a barbarian you little twinkle-pants?! Giveitback!" Oghren tried to lunge for Zevran, but the elf danced neatly away and Oghren quickly tripped over his stool in his drunkenness and fell over, though he was still ranting something that was becoming increasingly less coherent as the seconds tipped by.

Zevran shook his head and sipped his newly acquired drink, while looking around the table. His eyes lit up when he saw Alistair. "Ah! My Grey Warden friend—well, the other one." He leaned against the table. "It has been a long time, hasn't it?"

"It has indeed, Zev!" Alistair said, grinning. For once someone he knew, someone more—well he wouldn't say normal since Zevran was the precise opposite of anything related to normal. _Familiar_ he supposed was the better word. "What have you been doing all these years?"

"Killing," Zevran replied without the slightest second of hesitation, and even that made Varric look up from what he was doing to raise an eyebrow. "And stealing! Oh, and sex! Lots and lots of sex! Though I doubt I would say the same thing of you, Alistair." He ignored the Warden's look and instead glanced to the Iron Bull, smiling into the analyzing stare. "And of everyone at this table, you are the one I have not seen before. How do you do? My name is Zevran Arainai, Zev to my friends. And you are?"

"The Iron Bull," came the reply, though the Iron Bull seemed a bit less enthusiastic than he normally was. "With the _'the'_ included. One of the Crows, specializing in knives and poisons. Or perhaps ex-Crow is a better term."

Said ex-Crow threw back his head and laughed. "Correct you are! It seems what they say about the Ben-Hassarath is true." He turned from Bull's briefly astonished (but quickly controlled) look before turning back to Alistair. "And what have you been doing Alistair? Boring things like fighting darkspawn in the field and not fighting a partner in bed?"

Alistair flushed deeply. He wasn't sure what embarrassed him more, Oghren's crassness or Zevran's boldness. "The Grey Warden's protect the people from darkspawn and help eradicate them!" he protested. "You know this, Zevran!"

"Indeed, but must they be so boring about it?" he took another swig of ale. "You know how much Darrian and Morrigan were intertwined in each other's arms, in the middle of a Blight too! Why, Morrigan's screaming—"

"I would _not like to remember that thank you!"_ Alistair yelled, plugging his ears and trying to drown the elf's voice out.

But there was someone else who wanted to hear every single word. "Morrigan's screams?" Varric said, perking up like a dog with a scent.

Zevran turned to him, all smiles and a wicked light in his eye. "Oh yes, I thought that would interest the writer here," he said, stealing Oghren's stool for himself and seating himself inside of it gracefully. "What tales I have to tell you! Oh I know a good one after, this: how about the bedroom tactics of your dear Leliana? Trust in me, I have an expert eye at this!"

"Maker, are you joking?!" Varric sputtered, feeling his face g pale. "I would rather wake up with my throat unslit, thank you!"

"Now come on Varric, how do you even know he's telling the truth?" the Iron Bull asked, draining another mug in a few quick swallows. "You should know this as a writer: people always need to back up their claims!"

The assassin turned his head slowly, almost in a predatory-like manner, while his eyes glinted dangerously above his smiling mouth. "Indeed they do, the Iron Bull," he said sweetly. "That's why I can tell right away that you like whipping. And to be whipped." He grinned at the reaction he got: or rather lack of one. A very _pointed_ lack of reaction, that was so poignant that it came back around and ended up being a reaction again. "You like to be on top, like being in control of people and telling them when they can have their release. Though with you being Ben-Hassarath this makes perfect sense. But when someone who had a big enough spine comes along, you become _very_ flexible yourself."

The Iron Bull scowled, then grinned. "Alright, alright, good one, whore," he said. The word sounded less like an insult and more like a title, but even if it was meant as an insult, from the way Zevran smiled he certainly did not take it that way. "From one observer to another, though, how are you able to do that?"

"You were trained to read the behavior and thoughts of people just by looking at them. As someone who grew up in a brothel, you learn to read the sexual fantasies of others by doing much the same. What we do is no different, except by what we are looking for."

Varric frowned a little at the words. Zevran had, very noticeably in his mind, said "others," and not "clients." He had grown up in a whorehouse, but had never participated? That couldn't be true, how could—

Well, the Crows did take their recruits when they were very young. Perhaps he had not been old enough—

Yes but that sometimes didn't stop sick people—

He was _not_ about to finish that thought process. If Zevran didn't have clients in his whorehouse then he did _not,_ end of story. Varric spied a mug that had not been touched yet and grabbed it, drowning the thoughts out with some heavy dark ale.

"Why do you like to write so much?" Zevran asked, glancing over at his book.

Varric raised another eyebrow. "I'm a writer! It's what I do—ever read _Hard in Hightown?_ "

"Can't say I have, no. I suppose I should, to see what is so _hard_ in this Hightown!" He and Bull both roared with laughter, while Varric and Alistair groaned.

"Not like that," Varric grumbled a little, and immediately regretted it. He had the sense he was digging himself into a hole. "It's a murder mystery!"

"And filled with spicy scenes, yes?"

"No."

"Not even a romantic subplot?"

"No! I—I can't really write romance and that stuff. I'm terrible at it."

Zevran snorted and shook his head. "Oh _no,_ tis a piteous day indeed when see that there's not one, but _two_ of them in Thedas! Maker help me!"

"Two of _what?"_ Alistair asked pointedly, but a part of him felt like he already knew. Especially with Bull snickering like that.

"Of the same type of people, of course!" Zevran said, clearly enjoying himself. He was even waving his hands rather dramatically that Alistair remembered he liked to do. "That friend, that wonderful friend who likes to forgo his own sexual desires and thoughts, just so they may occupy that space at their best friend's side to carefully watch over him or her. In other words, you're great wingmen, but you _seriously_ are lacking in game, gentlemen."

Bull roared with laughter again, but this time there came some laughter from around him too at the nearest tables, and a cackling from above. "Eh there! Yer pretty alright for an elf, elf!" Sera called from above, her cackle ringing out over the tavern.

"Speak for yourself, street-rat!" Zevran called back playfully and ducked out of the way of a flung mug, which just so happened to nearly brain Krem as he was walking by. Bull pulled him out of the way in just enough time. "Now, where was I? Oh yes, the orgy that no one has started yet! What, must I do everything myself?"

"We are _not_ starting an orgy!" Alistair sputtered.

"Well you course _you_ are not! You lack in charm and game, remember?" Zevran grinned at him. "I, on the other hand, apparently must build everything with my own two hands! And lips. And tongue. And d—"

"Hey hey!" Varric cut him off right as he realized that Zevran absolutely _would_ rattle all of this stuff off, out loud, without hesitation. "What about those stories you were talking about?"

"Interested you now, have I?" Zevran said with a grin. "Alright, I'll give you a few stories. But first, you tell me one thing. Who is she?"

Varric tilted his head to one side. Most of the time he could keep up at least somewhat with what the crazy elf was saying, but now he was completely lost. "Who is who?" he asked.

"The _girl,_ my clueless one," Zevran said with the grin. "The girl you are _pining_ over. It is not as if you lack any and utter skills in charm like Alistair here—"

"Hey!" Alistair protested.

"-it is simply all of your charm is bent on _one woman,_ I can tell! Now, who is she?"

Maker help him, he was good. _Too_ good, scary good. And Varric wasn't sure if he liked it. "Her name is Bianca," he growled. "And that's all you'll know."

"Fair enough, I suppose I should have been more specific with my request. But a deal is a deal and—"

"Hey you guys—jeez Oghren!" Blackwall swore as he nearly tripped over the fallen dwarf as he was coming up, though from the snore he got in response Oghren was clearly passed out. Trailing behind him was the mabari and Sigrun, both who gave Oghren equal looks of displeasure as they passed. "We were going to join you." And with that he pulled up a chair and inserted himself right into their little circle.

"Have any of you guys seen the Warden? Or the Inquisitor for that matter?" Sigrun asked curiously. "They're kind of the main center of the celebration yet they aren't here."

Varric and Alistair exchanged looks. "It'd be weirder if they were here, trust me," Varric muttered, scribbling down a quick note.

"What do you mean?" Sigrun frowned.

The both of them sighed at the same time. "They're too busy being _in love,"_ Alistair commented, rolling his eyes.

—

"Yes Kaaras! There, harder!" Cassandra was screaming without abandon, her nails clawing into his shoulders as she both held herself there and scratched him mindlessly in her passion at the same time.

Kaaras could barely think from the haze that had descended over his mind; the pain in his shoulders was actually quite amazing, but not so great as hearing Cassandra scream his name like that, making him want to pound her harder exactly as she demanded. His own hands tightened on her hips and he pressed her harder into the wall and _threw_ his hips into his thrusts.

They had both snuck away—though they did not have to do much sneaking at all to tell the truth. Everyone was so busy either celebrating the death of the dragon or running around thanks to Cullen's frantic orders that, for once, the Inquisitor was quite forgotten about. By all but Casandra, anyway, who had slipped her hand into his and had _squeezed._ Squeezed in a way that he had become intimately familiar with by now; the one of her racing blood and passion, after they had escaped death yet again and now in the aftermath other feelings were arising as well.

And while the men went to take care of their feelings in drinking and mindless revelry, they went off to enjoy life in each other.

They had barely gotten through the door when Cassandra pounced on him, nearly ripping his robes off in her haste, and he had to kick the door shut with his foot since his hands were too busy peeling off her armor. Well, partially. He had fumbled with the straps too much until he simply burned them off in his irritation and impatience, something that had made Cassandra laugh until he picked her up, put her against the wall (too impatient to make it to the bed) and simply began ramming into her right then and there.

He had slid in _so_ easily, and Cassandra howled and scratched and—yes thinking was absolutely on the bottom of things he was capable of right now. He just wanted to _feel_ her, to taste her, to touch her, and from the mindless things she was whispering to him and running her hands all over his body, she was feeling the same.

Her legs tightened around his waist. It was how she was keeping her balance for him and providing him easy access to what he needed the most, and it kept them unable to break apart, sharing breaths while they were sharing bodies.

"I love you," Cassandra nearly sobbed out with each broken breath that he seemed determined to steal away with his movements. " _I love you, I love you Kaaras!"_

 _"I love you too,"_ he murmured back into her ear, hitting deeply and never wanting to leave her, ever. "My Seeker, my beautiful, fierce Seeker, I love you so much! I can't ever think about anything else when I'm with you, I—"

And outside of the door, Cullen dropped his frozen fist as last, his face looking more and more akin to a beet with every passing moment he stood there listening. Then he abruptly spun on his heel and marched away as quickly as he could without breaking into a run and outright fleeing the scene.

But he needed _someone_ to show this current report to! Leliana had gone off Maker-knew where (why did she _always_ disappear when he needed her most?) and Josephine was so busy dealing with their allies and the strings she currently had to pull that it would just be one more thing to add to the already mountain of work she had to do. Not to mention fortifications, supply lines, damage assessment to the battlements, those things were not her forte at all. She would be all too lost in dealing with them.

Bu the Warden-Commander used to be the Arl of Amaranthine, yes? He certainly knew everything there was to know about the upkeep of a fort, with Vigil's Keep! With that thought in mind, he quickly hurried off to find Darrian. Or Morrigan, whoever came first. She would certainly know where he was.

—

"Nothing will come by again, momma?" Kieran asked as Morrigan tucked him into his bed. His eyes were huge as he stared up at both of his parents, but they were rapidly drooping under the effects of the potion that Morrigan had given him.

At first Darrian has disproved of it greatly. _"Drugging children so they fall asleep isn't a good thing, Morrigan,"_ he had said, and was hardly able to believe he even had to say it to begin with.

But she had shaken her head. _"This is more than just a common sleeping draught,"_ had been her hushed reply as she poured the dark green liquid into the bottle. It had the consistency of mud. _"Kieran is very likely in shock from what happened—even grown men would be. He could have died—"_ her eyes flashed with a bit of fire that she restrained with great effort _"—and he needs to relax. This will relax him, and of course once he is relaxed his mind will need to process everything, so he will sleep."_

 _"You're quite certain of that."_

 _"It is just our natural behavior, Darrian. You may see so for yourself."_

And indeed, their son did calm down quite considerably after drinking Morrigan's draught, and while he had been alert for some minutes he began to nod off rather quickly. Once he had seen there was no more danger, he began to bury himself into his blankets even deeper than usual.

"I promise Kieran, nothing will come here," Morrigan said softly. "Not while your father and I are here, and not even then."

With all the extra enchantments she had woven into Kieran's bed and their room, Darrian was fairly certain it would take a whole other cult, along with a half-dozen magisters helping them out, to even break down the front door. There probably wasn't a safer place in the entirety of Thedas at the moment. "We'll protect you, son," he said, coming over to stroke Kieran's hair. "Just rest for now, okay?"

Kieran nodded wordlessly, and then turned over to get some rest, the effects of the potion creeping quickly upon him. Within minutes, his breathing began to deepen.

Morrigan stood up and took his hand, giving him a knowing look, before they both exited the room. The adjacent one was Morrigan's, but she took them even further, into the guest room that Darrian had been alternatively sleeping in since he had arrived. "I've been waiting too damn long for you to show up, Warden," she said almost teasingly as he closed the door. "And as soon as you do, you bring a whole new village of cultists with you on your tail! I see you need to be watched over every second, no better than young Kieran out there!"

Darrian smirked at her, knowing her little game by now. The constant teasing, the harassing and insulting, one Alistair would crumple over but what she really wanted was for someone to fight _back._ "You know what it is like. People can't seem to stop chasing after me. They can't seem to get the hint that I'm already taken." He began to prowl closer to her, his eyes alight with a fire that they both knew better than to deny or even try to fight. And who would want to in the first place?

"Then you had best remind them who has you taken, lest she even forget herself," she said, impatience coloring her tone, and he just grinned. It was always fun when she was the desperate one.

And of course in his touches and undressing of her he had to go _slow._ Nothing infuriated Morrigan more than when Darrian was deciding to be _slow_ and she tried to tear off her clothes herself, but he pinned her hands down, preventing her from doing so. Of course she tried to cheat and use magic, but he easily knew how to avoid them by now.

But it did cause him to roll over, with her on top, and she began grinding himself against the hardness in his pants, though it lasted for a few seconds until his hand came to slap her hip with a loud smack and then he rolled them back over while she was distracted.

That ended up with them wrestling for a bit, fighting for dominance while they both laughed; Morrigan tried to freeze his hands to the wall and he was trying to tie her wrists together. She grabbed him by the dick and tried to hold him hostage until she got her way, and he just pinched her nipples until she gave in—or perhaps at that point they had simply gotten too distracted by what they were doing to really care about who won their little game anymore.

In fact Darrian couldn't even remember if any of them ever did—Morrigan would of course say it was _her_ but she was naturally not to be trusted and—did it really matter? He was busy touching her, tasting her, feeling her in a way that he ha not felt in such an _agonizingly_ long time that he had no idea how much he had missed and ached for it until he found it.

He was like a man in a desert coming across an oasis at last. Sticking his face into the cool, clear waters and drinking and drinking heedlessly, uncaring about anything else except for to slake his unending thirst. He rammed into her hard and fast, just as they both liked it as they were hedonists who enjoy their pleasures when they got them, and Morrigan never held herself back.

It was quite a good thing Morrigan had given Kieran that potion, in hindsight. If he had been sleeping in any lesser state than the rock he was now, he would have certainly woken up from all the noise. Perhaps that had been her plan all along and his health was just a happy side effect?

Oh for the love of—what did it matter?! He yelled as he slammed harder and harder into her, so hard that the bed itself was banging into the wall and there would definitely be a mark there later, but that would be nothing compared to the marks that Morrigan was going to leave on his back—

And the ones he was going to leave all over her, starting with her thighs.

Cullen, meanwhile, had all the color drain from his face. He didn't even _need_ to reach the outside of their door to hear _that_ going on, but he went anyway, just to make sure he wasn't hearing things. For the love of, why couldn't people act—act normal around this place? Maker have mercy why were they all so...

" _Yes, harder Darrian! Put it all in me!"_

Maker have mercy. That was it, where were all of those drunken sods in the tavern? If they didn't drink the whole place out by now he was going to find the largest keg and just stick his face right into it until he got so stupid-drunk he couldn't even count to two


End file.
